CHAPTER IV

1844-46

The year 1844 marks an important epoch in the life of Mrs. Browning.

It was in this year that, as a result of the publication of her two

volumes of 'Poems,' she won her general and popular recognition as a

poetess whose rank was with the foremost of living writers. It was six

years since she had published a volume of verse; and in the meanwhile

she had been gaining strength and literary experience. She had tried

her wings in the pages of popular periodicals. She had profited by

the criticisms on her earlier work, and by intercourse with men of

letters; and though her defects in literary art were by no means

purged away, yet the flights of her inspiration were stronger and

more assured. The result is that, although the volumes of 1844 do not

contain absolutely her best work--no one with the 'Sonnets from the

Portuguese' in his mind can affirm so much as that--they contain that

which has been most generally popular, and which won her the position

which for the rest of her life she held in popular estimation among

the leaders of English poetry.

The principal poem in these two volumes is the 'Drama of Exile.' Of

the genesis of this work, Miss Barrett gives the following account in

a letter to Home, dated December 28 1843:

'A volume full of manuscripts had been ready for more than a year,

when suddenly, a short time ago, when I fancied I had no heavier work

than to make copy and corrections, I fell upon a fragment of a sort

of masque on "The First Day's Exile from Eden"--or rather it fell upon

me, and beset me till I would finish it.'[91]

[Footnote 91: _Letters to R.H. Home_, ii. 146.]

At one time it was intended to use its name as the title to the two

volumes; but this design was abandoned, and they appeared under the

simple description of 'Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.' The

'Vision of Poets' comes next in length to the 'Drama'; and among the

shorter pieces were several which rank among her best work, 'The Cry

of the Children,' 'Wine of Cyprus,' 'The Dead Pan,' 'Bertha in the

Lane,' 'Crowned and Buried,' 'The Mourning Mother,' and 'The Sleep,'

together with such popular favourites as 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship,'

'The Romaunt of the Page,' and 'The Rhyme of the Duchess May.' Since

the publication of 'The Seraphim' volume, the new era of poetry had

developed itself to a notable extent. Tennyson had published the

best of his earlier verse, 'Locksley Hall,' 'Ulysses,' the 'Morte

d'Arthur,' 'The Lotus Eaters,' 'A Dream of Fair Women,' and many more;

Browning had issued his wonderful series of 'Bells and Pomegranates,'

including 'Pippa Passes,' 'King Victor and King Charles,' 'Dramatic

Lyrics,' 'The Return of the Druses,' and 'The Blot on the 'Scutcheon';

and it was among company such as this that Miss Barrett, by general

consent, now took her place.

_To Mrs. Martin_

January 8, 1844.

Thank you again and again, my dearest Mrs. Martin, for your flowers,

and the verses which gave them another perfume. The 'incense of the

heart' lost not a grain of its perfume in coming so far, and not a

leaf of the flowers was ruffled, and to see such gorgeous colours all

on a sudden at Christmas time was like seeing a vision, and almost

made Flush and me rub our eyes. Thank you, dearest Mrs. Martin; how

kind of you! The grace of the verses and the brightness of the flowers

were too much for me altogether. And when George exclaimed, 'Why, she

has certainly laid bare her greenhouse,' I had not a word to say in

justification of myself for being the cause of it.

Papa admired the branch of Australian origin so much that he walked

all over the house with it. Beautiful it is indeed; but my eyes turn

back to the camellias. I do believe that I like to look at a camellia

better than at a rose; and then _these_ have a double association....

I meant to write a long letter to you to-day, but Mr. Kenyon has

been to see me and cut my time short before post time. You remember,

perhaps, how his brother married a German, and, after an exile of many

years in Germany, returned last summer to England to settle. Well, he

can't bear us any longer! His wife is growing paler and paler with the

pressure of English social habits, or rather unsocial habits; and he

himself is a German at heart; and besides, being a man of a singularly

generous nature, and accustomed to give away in handfuls of silver

and gold one-third of every year's income, he dislikes the social

obligation of _spending_ it here. So they are going back. Poor Mr.

Kenyon! I am full of sympathy with him. This returning to England

was a dream of all last year to him. He gave up his house to the new

comers, and bought a new one; and talked of the brightness secured to

his latter years by the presence of his only remaining near relative;

and I see that, for all his effort towards a bright view of the

matter, he is disappointed--very. Should you suppose that four hundred

pounds in Vienna go as far as a thousand in England? I should never

have fancied it.

You shall hear from me, my dearest Mrs. Martin, in another few days;

and I send this as it is, just because I am benighted by the post

hour, and do not like to pass your kindness with even one day's

apparent neglect.

May God bless you and dear Mr. Martin. The kindest wishes for the long

slope of coming year, and for the many, I trust, beyond it, belong to

you from the deepest of our hearts.

But shall you not be coming--setting out--very soon, before I can

write again?

Your affectionate

BA.

_To John Kenyan_

[?January 1844.]

I am so sorry, dear Mr. Kenyon, to hear--which I did, last night, for

the first time--of your being unwell. I had hoped that to-day would

bring a better account, but your note, with its next week prospect, is

disappointing. The 'ignominy' would have been very preferable--to us,

at least, particularly as it need not have lasted beyond to-day,

dear Georgie being quite recovered, and at his law again, and no more

symptoms of small-pox in anybody. We should all be well, if it were

not for me and my cough, which is better, but I am not quite well, nor

have yet been out.

A letter came to me from dear Miss Mitford a few days since, which

I had hoped to talk to you about. Some of the subject of it is Mr.

Kenyon's '_only fault_,' which ought, of course, to be a large one to

weigh against the multitudinous ones of other people, but which seems

to be: 'He has the habit of walking in without giving notice. He

thinks it saves trouble, whereas in a small family, and at a distance

from a town, the effect is that one takes care to be provided for the

whole time that one expects him, and then, by some exquisite ill luck,

on the only day when one's larder is empty, in he comes!' And so, if

you have not written to interrupt her in this process of indefinite

expectation, the 'only fault' will, in her eyes, grow, as it ought, as

large as fifty others.

I do hope, dear Mr. Kenyon, soon to hear that you are better--and

well--and that your course of prophecy may not run smooth all through

next week.

Very truly yours,

E. BARRETT.

Saturday.

_To John Kenyon_

Saturday night [about March 1844].

I return Mr. Burges's criticism, which I omitted to talk to you of

this morning, but which interested me much in the reading. Do let him

understand how obliged to him I am for permitting me to look, for a

moment, according to his view of the question. Perhaps my poetical

sense is not convinced all through, and certainly my critical sense

is not worth convincing, but I am delighted to be able to call by

the name of Aeschylus, under the authority of Mr. Burges, those noble

electrical lines (electrical for double reasons) which had struck

me twenty times as Aeschylean, when I read them among the recognised

fragments of Sophocles. You hear Aeschylus's footsteps and voice in

the lines. No other of the gods could tread so heavily, or speak so

like thundering.

I wrote all this to begin with, hesitating how else to begin. My

very dear and kind friend, you understand--do you not?--through an

expression which, whether written or spoken, must remain imperfect, to

what deep, full feeling of gratitude your kindness has moved me.[92]

The good you have done me, and just at the moment when I should have

failed altogether without it, and in more than one way, and in a

deeper than the obvious degree--all this I know better than you do,

and I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart. I shall never

forget it, as long as I live to remember anything. The book may fail

signally after all--_that_ is another question; but I shall not fail,

to begin with, and _that_ I owe to _you_, for I was falling to pieces

in nerves and spirits when you came to help me. I had only enough

instinct left to be ashamed, a little, afterwards, of having sent you,

in company, too, with Miss Martineau's heroic cheerfulness, that note

of weak because unavailing complaint. It was a long compressed feeling

breaking suddenly into words. Forgive and forget that I ever so

troubled you--no, 'troubled' is not the word for your kindness!--and

remember, as I shall do, the great good you have done me.

May God bless you, my dear cousin.

Affectionately yours always,

E.B.B.

[Footnote 92: Referring to Mr. Kenyon's encouraging comments on the

'Drama of Exile,' which he had seen in manuscript at a time when Miss

Barrett was very despondent about it.]

This note is not to be answered.

I am thinking of writing to Moxon, as there does not seem much to

arrange. The type and size of Tennyson's books seem, upon examination,

to suit my purpose excellently.

_To John Kenyan_

March 21, 1844.

No, you never sent me back Miss Martineau's letter, my dear cousin;

but you will be sure, or rather Mr. Crabb Robinson will, to find it in

some too safe a place; and then I shall have it. In the meantime here

are the other letters back again. You will think that I was keeping

them for a deposit, a security, till I 'had my ain again,' but I have

only been idle and busy together. They are the most interesting that

can be, and have quite delighted me. By the way, _I_, who saw nothing

to object to in the 'Life in the Sick Room,' object very much to her

argument in behalf of it--an argument certainly founded on a miserable

misapprehension of the special doctrine referred to in her letter.

There is nothing so elevating and ennobling to the nature and mind

of man as the view which represents it raised into communion with God

Himself, by the justification and purification of God Himself. Plato's

dream brushed by the gate of this doctrine when it walked highest, and

won for him the title of 'Divine.' That it is vulgarised sometimes by

narrow-minded teachers in theory, and by hypocrites in action, might

be an argument (if admitted at all) against all truth, poetry, and

music!

On the other hand, I was glad to see the leaning on the Education

question; in which all my friends the Dissenters did appear to me so

painfully wrong and so unworthily wrong at once.

And Southey's letters! I did quite delight in _them_! They are more

_personal_ than any I ever saw of his; and have more warm every-day

life in them.

The particular Paul Pry in question (to come down to _my_ life) never

'intrudes.' It is his peculiarity. And I put the stop exactly where I

was bid; and was going to put Gabriel's speech,[93] only--with the

pen in my hand to do it--I found that the angel was a little too

exclamatory altogether, and that he had cried out, 'O ruined earth!'

and 'O miserable angel!' just before, approaching to the habit of a

mere caller of names. So I altered the passage otherwise; taking care

of your full stop after 'despair.' Thank you, my dear Mr. Kenyon.

Also I sent enough manuscript for the first sheet, and a note to

Moxon yesterday, last night, thanking him for his courtesy about Leigh

Hunt's poems; and following your counsel in every point. 'Only last

night,' you will say! But I have had _such_ a headache--and some very

painful vexation in the prospect of my maid's leaving me, who has been

with me throughout my illness; so that I am much attached to her,

with the best reasons for being so, while the idea of a stranger is

scarcely tolerable to me under my actual circumstances.

The 'Palm Leaves'[94] are full of strong thought and good

thought--thought expressed excellently well; but of poetry, in

the true sense, and of imagination in any, I think them bare and

cold--somewhat wintry leaves to come from the East, surely, surely!

May the change of air be rapid in doing you good--the weather seems to

be softening on purpose for you. May God bless you, dear Mr. Kenyon;

I never can thank you enough. When you return I shall be rustling my

'proofs' about you, to prove my faith in your kindness.

Ever affectionately yours,

E.B.B.

[Footnote 93: In the 'Drama of Exile,' near the beginning (_Poetical

Works_, i. 7).]

[Footnote 94: By Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

March 22, 1844.

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--I heard that once I wrote three times too long

a letter to you; I am aware that nine times too long a silence is

scarcely the way to make up for it. Forgive me, however, as far as you

can, for every sort of fault. When I once begin to write to you, I do

not know how to stop; and I have had so much to do lately as scarcely

to know how to begin to write to you. _Hence these_ faults--not quite

tears--in spite of my penitence and the quotation.

At last my book is in the press. My great poem (in the modest

comparative sense), my 'Masque of Exile' (as I call it at last[95]),

consists of some nineteen hundred or two thousand lines, and I call it

'Masque of _Exile_' because it refers to Lucifer's exile, and to that

other mystical exile of the Divine Being which was the means of the

return homewards of my Adam and Eve. After the exultation of boldness

of composition, I fell into one of my deepest fits of despondency, and

at last, at the end of most painful vacillations, determined not to

print it. Never was a manuscript so near the fire as my 'Masque' was.

I had not even the instinct of applying for help to anybody. In the

midst of this Mr. Kenyon came in by accident, and asked about my poem.

I told him that I had given it up, despairing of my republic. In the

kindest way he took it into his hands, and proposed to carry it home

and read it, and tell me his impression. 'You know,' he said, 'I have

a prejudice against these sacred subjects for poetry, but then I have

another prejudice _for you_, and one may neutralise the other.' The

next day I had a letter from him with the returned manuscript--a

letter which I was absolutely certain, before I opened it, would

counsel _against_ the publication. On the contrary! His impression is

clearly in favour of the poem, and, while he makes sundry criticisms

on minor points, he considers it very superior as a whole to anything

I ever did before--more sustained, and fuller in power. So my nerves

are braced, and I grow a man again; and the manuscript, as I told you,

is in the press. Moreover, you will be surprised to hear that I think

of bringing out _two volumes of poems_ instead of one, by advice

of Mr. Moxon, the publisher. Also, the Americans have commanded an

American edition, to come out in numbers, either a little before or

simultaneously with the English one, and provided with a separate

preface for themselves.

There now! I have told you all this, knowing your kindness, and that

you will care to hear of it.

It has given me the greatest concern to hear of dear Annie's illness,

and I do hope, both for your sake and for all our sakes, that we may

have better news of her before long.

But I don't mean to fall into another scrape to-day by writing too

much. May God bless you, my very dear friend!

I am ever your affectionate

E.B.B.

[Footnote 95: There was, however, a still later last, when it became

the 'Drama of Exile.']

_To H.S. Boyd_

April I, 1844.

My very dear Friend,--Your kind letter I was delighted to receive. You

mistake a good deal the capacities in judgment of 'the man.'[96] The

'man' is highly refined in his tastes, and leaning to the classical

(I was going to say to _your_ classical, only suddenly I thought of

Ossian) a good deal more than I do. He has written satires in the

manner of Pope, which admirers of Pope have praised warmly and

deservedly. If I had hesitated about the conclusiveness of his

judgments, it would have been because of his confessed indisposition

towards subjects religious and ways mystical, and his occasional

insufficient indulgence for rhymes and rhythms which he calls

'_Barrettian_.' But these things render his favourable inclination

towards my 'Drama of Exile' still more encouraging (as you will see)

to my hopes for it.

Still, I do tremble a good deal inwardly when I come to think of

what your own thoughts of my poem, and poems in their two-volume

development, may finally be. I am afraid of you. You will tell me the

truth as it appears to you--upon _that_ I may rely; and I should not

wish you to suppress a single disastrous thought for the sake of the

unpleasantness it may occasion to me. My own faith is that I have made

progress since 'The Seraphim,' only it is too possible (as I confess

to myself and you) that your opinion may be exactly contrary to it.

You are very kind in what you say about wishing to have some

conversation, as the medium of your information upon architecture,

with Octavius--Occy, as we call him. He is very much obliged to you,

and proposes, if it should not be inconvenient to you, to call upon

you on Friday, with Arabel, at about one o'clock. Friday is mentioned

because it is a holiday, no work being done at Mr. Barry's. Otherwise

he is engaged every day (except, indeed, Sunday) from nine in the

morning to five in the afternoon. May God bless you, dearest Mr. Boyd.

I am ever

Your affectionate

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

[Footnote 96: John Kenyon: see the last letter.]

_To Mr. Westwood_

April 16, 1844.

... Surely, surely, it was not likely I should lean to utilitarianism

in the notice on Carlyle, as I remember the writer of that

article leans somewhere--_I_, who am reproached with

trans-trans-transcendentalisms, and not without reason, or with

insufficient reason.

Oh, and I should say also that Mr. Home, in his kindness, has enlarged

considerably in his annotations and reflections on me personally.[97]

My being in correspondence with all the Kings of the East, for

instance, is an exaggeration, although literary work in one way will

bring with it, happily, literary association in others.... Still, I am

not a great letter writer, and I don't write 'elegant Latin verses,'

as all the gods of Rome know, and I have not been shut up in the dark

for seven years by any manner of means. By the way, a barrister said

to my barrister brother the other day, 'I suppose your sister is

dead?' 'Dead?' said he, a little struck; 'dead?' 'Why, yes. After Mr.

Home's account of her being sealed up hermetically in the dark for so

many years, one can only calculate upon her being dead by this time.'

ELIZABETH BARRETT.

Several of the letters to Mr. Boyd which follow refer to that

celebrated gift of Cyprus wine which led to the composition of one of

Miss Barrett's best known and most quoted poems.

[Footnote 97: In _The New Spirit of the Age_.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

June 18, 1844.

Thank you, my very dear friend! I write to you drunk with Cyprus.

Nothing can be worthier of either gods or demi-gods; and if, as you

say, Achilles did not drink of it, I am sorry for him. I suppose

Jupiter had it instead, just then--Hebe pouring it, and Juno's ox-eyes

bellowing their splendour at it, if you will forgive me that broken

metaphor, for the sake of Aeschylus's genius, and my own particular

intoxication.

Indeed, there _never was_, in modern days, such wine. Flush, to whom

I offered the last drop in my glass, felt it was supernatural, and

ran away. I have an idea that if he had drunk that drop, he would have

talked afterwards--either Greek or English.

Never was such wine! The very taste of ideal nectar, only stiller,

from keeping. If the bubbles of eternity were on it, _we_ should run

away, perhaps, like Flush.

Still, the thought comes to me, ought I to take it from you? Is it

right of me? are you not too kind in sending it? and should you be

allowed to be too kind? In any case, you must, not think of sending me

more than you have already sent. It is more than enough, and I am not

less than very much obliged to you.

I have passed the middle of my second volume, and I only hope that

critics may say of the rest that it smells of Greek wine. Dearest Mr.

Boyd's

Ever affectionate

E.B. BARRETT.

_To Mr. Westwood_

June 28, 1844.

My dear Mr. Westwood,--I have certainly and considerably increased

the evidence of my own death by the sepulchral silence of the last few

days. But after all I am not dead, not even _at heart_, so as to be

insensible to your kind anxiety, and I can assure you of this, upon

very fair authority, neither is the book dead yet. It has turned the

corner of the _felo de se_, and if it is to die, it will be by the

critics. The mystery of the long delay, it would not be very easy for

me to explain, notwithstanding I hear Mr. Moxon says: 'I suppose Miss

Barrett is not in a hurry about her publication;' and _I_ say: 'I

suppose Moxon is not in a hurry about the publication.' There may be

a little fault on my side, when I have kept a proof a day beyond the

hour, or when 'copy' has put out new buds in my hands as I passed it

to the printer's. Still, in my opinion, it is a good deal more the

fault of Mr. Moxon's not being in a hurry, than in the excessive

virtue of my patience, or vice of my indolence. Miss Mitford says, as

you do, that she never heard of so slow-footed a book.

_To H.S. Boyd_

50 Wimpole Street:

Wednesday, August I, 1844 [postmark].

My very dear Friend,--Have you expected to hear from me? and are you

vexed with me? I am a little ambitious of the first item--yet hopeful

of an escape from the last. If you did but know how I am pressed for

time, and how I have too much to do every day, you would forgive

me for my negligence; even if you had sent me nectar instead of

mountain,[98] and I had neglected laying my gratitude at your

feet. Last Saturday, upon its being discovered that my first volume

consisted of only 208 pages, and my second of 280 pages, Mr. Moxon

uttered a cry of reprehension, and wished to tear me to pieces by his

printers, as the Bacchantes did Orpheus. Perhaps you might have heard

my head moaning all the way to St. John's Wood! He wanted to tear away

several poems from the end of the second volume, and tie them on to

the end of the first! I could not and would not hear of this, because

I had set my mind on having 'Dead Pan' to conclude with. So there was

nothing for it but to finish a ballad poem called 'Lady Geraldine's

Courtship,' which was lying by me, and I did so by writing, i.e.

composing, _one hundred and forty lines last Saturday!_[99] I seemed

to be in a dream all day! Long lines too--with fifteen syllables in

each! I see you shake your head all this way off. Moreover it is a

'romance of the age,' treating of railroads, routes, and all manner

of 'temporalities,' and in so radical a temper that I expect to be

reproved for it by the Conservative reviews round. By the way, did I

tell you of the good news I had from America the third of this month?

The 'Drama of Exile' is in the hands of a New York publisher; and

having been submitted to various chief critics of the country on its

way, was praised loudly and extravagantly. This was, however, by a

_private reading_ only. A bookseller at Philadelphia had announced it

for publication--he intended to take it up when the English edition

reached America; but upon its being represented to him that the New

York publisher had proof sheets direct from the author and would give

copy money, he abandoned his intention to the other. I confess I feel

very much pleased at the kind spirit--the spirit of eager kindness

indeed--with which the Americans receive my poetry. It is not wrong

to be pleased, I hope. In this country there may be mortifications

waiting for me; quite enough to keep my modesty in a state of

cultivation. I do not know. I hope the work will be out this week, and

_then_! Did I explain to you that what 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship'

was wanted for was to increase the size of the first volume, so as to

restore the equilibrium of volumes, without dislocating 'Pan'? Oh, how

anxious I shall be to hear your opinion! If you tell me that I have

lost my intellects, what in the world shall I do _then_--what _shall_

I do? My Americans--that is, my Americans who were in at the private

reading, and perhaps I myself--are of opinion that I have made

great progress since 'The Seraphim.' It seems to me that I have more

_reach_, whether in thought or language. But then, to _you_ it may

appear quite otherwise, and I shall be very melancholy if it does.

Only you must tell me the _precise truth_; and I trust to you that you

will let me have it in its integrity.

All the life and strength which are in me, seem to have passed into my

poetry. It is my _pou sto_--not to move the world; but to live on in.

I must not forget to tell you that there is a poem towards the end of

the second volume, called 'Cyprus Wine,' which I have done myself the

honor and pleasure of associating with your name. I thought that you

would not be displeased by it, as a proof of grateful regard from me.

Talking of wines, the Mountain has its attraction, but certainly is

not to be compared to the Cyprus. You will see how I have praised the

latter. Well, now I must say 'good-bye,' which you will praise _me_

for!

Dearest Mr. Boyd's affectionate

E.B.B.

P.S.--_Nota bene_--I wish to forewarn you that I have cut away in the

text none of my vowels by apostrophes. When I say 'To efface,'

wanting two-syllable measure, I do not write 'T' efface' as in the old

fashion, but 'To efface' full length. This is the style of the day.

Also you will find me a little lax perhaps in metre--a freedom which

is the result not of carelessness, but of _conviction_, and indeed of

much patient study of the great Fathers of English poetry--not meaning

Mr. Pope. Be as patient with me as you can. You shall have the volumes

as soon as they are ready.

[Footnote 98: Evidently a reference to the name of some wine (perhaps

Montepulciano) sent her by Mr. Boyd. See the end of the letter.]

[Footnote 99: It will be observed that this is not quite the same as

the current legend, which asserts that the whole poem (of 412 lines)

was composed in twelve hours.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

August 6, 1844.

My very dear Friend,--I cannot be certain, from my recollections,

whether I did or did not write to you before, as you suggest; but

as you never received the letter and I was in a continual press of

different thoughts, the probability is that I did not write. The

Cyprus wine in the second vial I certainly _did_ receive; and was

grateful to you with the whole force of the aroma of it. And now I

will tell you an anecdote.

In the excess of my filial tenderness, I poured out a glass for papa,

and offered it to him with my right hand.

'_What is this_?' said he.

'_Taste it_,' said I as laconically, but with more emphasis.

He raised it to his lips; and, after a moment, recoiled, with such

a face as sinned against Adam's image, and with a shudder of deep

disgust.

'Why,' he said, 'what most beastly and nauseous thing is this? Oh,' he

said, 'what detestable drug is this? Oh, oh,' he said, 'I shall never,

never, get this horrible taste out of my mouth.'

I explained with the proper degree of dignity that 'it was Greek wine,

Cyprus wine, and of very great value.'

He retorted with acrimony, that 'it might be Greek, twice over; but

that it was exceedingly beastly.'

I resumed, with persuasive argument, that 'it could scarcely be

beastly, inasmuch as the taste reminded one of oranges and orange

flower together, to say nothing of the honey of Mount Hymettus.'

He took me up with stringent logic, 'that any wine must positively be

beastly, which, pretending to be wine, tasted sweet as honey, and

that it was beastly on my own showing!' I send you this report as an

evidence of a curious opinion. But drinkers of port wine cannot be

expected to judge of nectar--and I hold your 'Cyprus' to be pure

nectar.

I shall have pleasure in doing what you ask me to do--that is,

I _will_--if you promise never to call me Miss Barrett again.

You have often quite vexed me by it. There is

Ba--Elizabeth--Elzbeth--Ellie--any modification of my name you may

call me by--but I won't be called Miss Barrett by _you_. Do you

understand? Arabel means to carry your copy of my book to you. And I

beg you not to fancy that I shall be impatient for you to read the

two volumes through. If you _ever_ read them through, it will be

a sufficient compliment, and indeed I do not expect that you _ever

will_.

May God bless you, dearest Mr. Boyd.

I remain,

Your affectionate and grateful

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

The date of this last letter marks, as nearly as need be, the date of

publication of Miss Barrett's volumes. The letters which follow deal

mainly with their reception, first at the hand of friends, and then by

the regular critics. The general verdict of the latter was extremely

complimentary. Mr. Chorley, in the 'Athenaeum,'[100] described the

volumes as 'extraordinary,' adding that 'between her [Miss Barrett's]

poems and the slighter lyrics of most of the sisterhood, there is all

the difference which exists between the putting-on of "singing robes"

for altar service, and the taking up lute or harp to enchant an

indulgent circle of friends and kindred.' In the 'Examiner,'[101] John

Forster declared that 'Miss Barrett is an undoubted poetess of a high

and fine order as regards the first requisites of her art--imagination

and expression.... She is a most remarkable writer, and her volumes

contain not a little which the lovers of poetry will never willingly

let die,' a phrase then not quite so hackneyed as it has since become.

The 'Atlas'[102] asserted that 'the present volumes show extraordinary

powers, and, abating the failings of which all the followers of

Tennyson are guilty, extraordinary genius.' More influential even than

these, 'Blackwood'[103] paid her the compliment of a whole article,

criticising her faults frankly, but declaring that 'her poetical

merits infinitively outweigh her defects. Her genius is profound,

unsullied, and without a flaw.' All agreed in assigning her a high,

or the highest, place among the poetesses of England; but, as

Miss Barrett herself pointed out, this, in itself, was no great

praise.[104]

[Footnote 100: August 24, 1844.]

[Footnote 101: October 5, 1844.]

[Footnote 102: September 31, 1844.]

[Footnote 103: November 1844.]

[Footnote 104: See letter of January 3, 1845.]

With regard to individual poems, the critics did not take kindly to

the 'Drama of Exile,' and 'Blackwood' in particular criticised it at

considerable length, calling it 'the least successful of her works.'

The subject, while half challenging comparison with Milton, lends

itself only too readily to fancifulness and unreality, which were

among the most besetting sins of Miss Barrett's genius. The minor

poems were incomparably more popular, and the favourite of all was

that masterpiece of rhetorical sentimentality, 'Lady Geraldine's

Courtship.' It must have been a little mortifying to the authoress to

find this piece, a large part of which had been dashed off at a single

heat in order to supply the printers' needs, preferred to others on

which she had employed all the labour of her deliberate art; but with

the general tone of all the critics she had every reason to be as

content as her letters show her to have been. Only two criticisms

rankled: the one that she was a follower of Tennyson, the other that

her rhymes were slovenly and careless. And these appeared, in varying

shapes, in nearly all the reviews.

The former of these allegations is of little weight. Whatever

qualities Miss Barrett may have shared with Tennyson, her substantial

independence is unquestionable. It is a case rather of coincidence

than imitation; or if imitation, it is of a slight and unconscious

kind. The second criticism deserves fuller notice, because it is

constantly repeated to this day. The following letters show how

strongly Miss Barrett protested against it. As she told Horne,[105]

with reference to this very subject: 'If I fail ultimately before the

public--that is, before the people--for an ephemeral popularity does

not appear to me to be worth trying for--it will not be because I have

shrunk from the amount of labour, where labour could do anything. I

have _worked_ at poetry; it has not been with me reverie, but art.'

That her rhymes were inexact, especially in such poems as 'The Dead

Pan,' she did not deny; but her defence was that the inexactness was

due to a deliberate attempt to widen the artistic capabilities of the

English language. Partly, perhaps, as a result of her acquaintance

with Italian literature, she had a marked fondness for disyllabic

rhymes; and since pure rhymes of this kind are not plentiful in

English, she tried the experiment of using assonances instead. Hence

such rhymes as _silence_ and _islands_, _vision_ and _procession_,

_panther_ and _saunter_, examples which could be indefinitely

multiplied if need were. Now it may be that a writer with a very

sensitive ear would not have attempted such an experiment, and it is a

fact that public taste has not approved it; but the experiment itself

is as legitimate as, say, the metrical experiments in hexameters and

hendecasyllabics of Longfellow or Tennyson, and whether approved

or not it should be criticised as an experiment, not as mere

carelessness. That Mrs. Browning's ear was quite-capable of discerning

true rhymes is shown by the fact that she tacitly abandoned her

experiment in assonances. Not only in the pure and high art of the

'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' but even in 'Casa Guidi Windows,' the

rhetorical and sometimes colloquial tone of which might have been

thought to lend itself to such devices, imperfect rhymes occur but

rarely not exceeding the limits allowed to himself by every poet who

has rhymed _given_ and _heaven_; and the roll of those who have _not_

done so must be small indeed.

[Footnote 105: _Letters to R.H. Horne_, ii. 119.]

The point has seemed worth dwelling on, because it touches a

commonplace of criticism as regards Mrs. Browning; but we may now make

way for her own comments on her critics and friends.

_To H.S. Boyd_

Tuesday, August 13, 1844 [postmark].

My very dear Friend,--I must thank you for the great kindness with

which you have responded to a natural expression of feeling on

my part, and for all the pleasure of finding you pleased with the

inscription of 'Cyprus Wine.' Your note has given me much true

pleasure. Yes; if my verses survive me, I should wish them to relate

the fact of my being your debtor for many happy hours.

And now I must explain to you that most of the 'incorrectnesses' you

speak of may be 'incorrectnesses,' but are not _negligences_. I have

a theory about double rhymes for which--I shall be attacked by the

critics, but which I could justify perhaps on high authority, or at

least analogy. In fact, these volumes of mine have more double rhymes

than any two books of English poems that ever to my knowledge were

printed; I mean of English poems _not comic_. Now, of double rhymes

in use, which are perfect rhymes, you are aware how few there are, and

yet you are also aware of what an admirable effect in making a rhythm

various and vigorous, double rhyming is in English poetry. Therefore

I have used a certain licence; and after much thoughtful study of the

Elizabethan writers, have ventured it with the public. And do _you_

tell me, _you_ who object to the use of a different _vowel_ in a

double rhyme, _why_ you rhyme (as everybody does, without blame from

anybody) 'given' to 'heaven,' when you object to my rhyming 'remember'

and 'chamber'? The analogy surely is all on my side, and I _believe_

that the spirit of the English language is also.

I write all this because you will find many other sins of the sort,

besides those in the 'Cyprus Wine;' and because I wish you to consider

the subject as _a point for consideration_ seriously, and not to blame

me as a writer of careless verses. If I deal too much in licences, it

is not because I am idle, but because I am speculative for freedom's

sake. It is possible, you know, to be wrong conscientiously; and I

stand up for my conscience only.

I thank you earnestly for your candour hitherto, and I beseech you to

be candid to the end.

It is tawny as Rhea's lion.

I know (although you don't say so) you object to that line. Yet

consider its structure. Does not the final 'y' of 'tawny' suppose an

apostrophe and apocope? Do you not run 'tawny as' into two syllables

naturally? I want you to see my principle.

With regard to blank verse, the great Fletcher admits sometimes

seventeen syllables into his lines.

I hope Miss Heard received her copy, and that you will not think me

arrogant in writing freely to you.

Believe me, I write only freely and not arrogantly; and I am impressed

with the conviction that my work abounds with far more faults than you

in your kindness will discover, notwithstanding your acumen.

Always your affectionate and grateful

ELIBET.

_To H.S. Boyd_

Wednesday, August 14, 1844 [postmark].

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--I must thank you for the great great pleasure

with which I have this moment read your note, the more welcome,

as (without hypocrisy) I had worked myself up into a nervous

apprehension, from your former one, that I should seem so 'rudis atque

incomposita' to you, in consequence of certain licences, as to end by

being intolerable. I know what an ear you have, and how you can hear

the dust on the wheel as it goes on. Well, I wrote to you yesterday,

to beg you to be patient and considerate.

But you are always given to surprise me with abundant kindness--with

supererogatory kindness. I believe in _that_, certainly.

I am very very glad that you think me stronger and more perspicuous.

For the perspicuity, I have struggled hard....

Your affectionate and grateful

ELZBETH.

_To Mr. Westwood_

50 Wimpole Street: August 22, 1844.

... Thank you for your welcome letter, so kind in its candour, _I_

angry that you should prefer 'The Seraphim'! Angry? No _indeed,

indeed_, I am grateful for 'The Seraphim,' and not exacting for the

'Drama,' and all the more because of a secret obstinate persuasion

that the 'Drama' will have a majority of friends in the end, and

perhaps deserve to have them. Nay, why should I throw perhapses over

my own impressions, and be insincere to you who have honoured me by

being sincere? Why should I dissemble my own belief that the 'Drama'

is worth two or three 'Seraphims'--_my own_ belief, you know, which is

worth nothing, writers knowing themselves so superficially, and having

such a natural leaning to their last work. Still, I may say honestly

to you, that I have a far more modest value for 'The Seraphim' than

your kindness suggests, and that I have seemed to myself to have a

clear insight into the fact that that poem was only borne up by the

minor poems published with it, from immediate destruction. There is a

want of unity in it which vexes me to think of, and the other faults

magnify themselves day by day, more and more, in my eyes. Therefore

it is not that I care _more_ for the 'Drama,' but I care less for 'The

Seraphim.' Both poems fall short of my aspiration and desire, but the

'Drama' seems to me fuller, freer and stronger, and worth the other

three times over. If it has anything new, I think it must be something

new into which I have lived, for certainly I wrote it sincerely and

from an inner impulse. In fact, I never wrote any poem with so much

sense of pleasure in the composition, and so rapidly, with continuous

flow--from fifty to a hundred lines a day, and quite in a glow of

pleasure and impulse all through. Still, you have not been used to see

me in blank verse, and there may be something in that. That the poem

is full of faults and imperfections I do not in the least doubt. I

have vibrated between exultations and despondencies in the correcting

and printing of it, though the composition went smoothly to an end,

and I am prepared to receive the bastinado to the critical degree, I

do assure you. The few opinions I have yet had are all to the effect

that my advance on the former publication is very great and obvious,

but then I am aware that people who thought exactly the contrary would

be naturally backward in giving me their opinion.... Indeed, I thank

you most earnestly. Truth and kindness, how rarely do they come

together! I am very grateful to you. It is curious that 'Duchess May'

is not a favorite of mine, and that I have sighed one or two secret

wishes towards its extirpation, but other writers besides yourself

have singled it out for praise in private letters to me. There has

been no printed review yet, I believe; and when I think of them, I

try to think of something else, for with no private friends among

the critical body (not that I should desire to owe security in such a

matter to private friendship) it is awful enough, this looking forward

to be reviewed. Never mind, the ultimate prosperity of the book lies

far above the critics, and can neither be mended nor made nor unmade

by _them_.

_To John Kenyan_

Wednesday morning [August 1844].

I return Mr. Chorley's[106] note, my dear cousin, with thankful

thoughts of him--as of you. I wish I could persuade you of the

rightness of my view about 'Essays on Mind' and such things, and how

the difference between them and my present poems is not merely the

difference between two schools, as you seemed to intimate yesterday,

nor even the difference between immaturity and maturity; but that it

is the difference between the dead and the living, between a copy and

an individuality, between what is myself and what is not myself. To

you who have a personal interest and--may I say? affection for me,

the girl's exercise assumes a factitious value, but to the public

the matter is otherwise and ought to be otherwise. And for the

'psychological' side of the question, _do_ observe that I have not

reputation enough to suggest a curiosity about _my legends_. Instead

of your 'legendary lore,' it would be just a legendary bore. Now you

understand what I mean. I do not underrate Pope nor his school, but I

_do_ disesteem everything which, bearing the shape of a book, is not

the true expression of a mind, and I know and feel (and so do _you_)

that a girl's exercise written when all the experience lay in books,

and the mind was suited rather for intelligence than production,

lying like an infant's face with an undeveloped expression, must

be valueless in itself, and if offered to the public directly or

indirectly as a work of mine, highly injurious to me. Why, of the

'Prometheus' volume, even, you know what I think and desire. 'The

Seraphim,' with all its feebleness and shortcomings and obscurities,

yet is the first utterance of my own individuality, and therefore the

only volume except the last which is not a disadvantage to me to have

thought of, and happily for me, the early books, never having been

advertised, nor reviewed, except by accident, once or twice, are as

safe from the public as manuscript.

Oh, I shudder to think of the lines which might have been 'nicked in,'

and all through Mr. Chorley's good nature. As if I had not sins enough

to ruin me in the new poems, without reviving juvenile ones, sinned

when I knew no better. Perhaps you would like to have the series of

epic poems which I wrote from nine years old to eleven. They might

illustrate some doctrine of innate ideas, and enrich (to that end) the

myths of metaphysicians.

And also agree with me in reverencing that wonderful genius _Keats_,

who, rising as a grand exception from among the vulgar herd of

juvenile versifiers, was an individual _man_ from the beginning, and

spoke with his own voice, though surrounded by the yet unfamiliar

murmur of antique echoes.[107] Leigh Hunt calls him 'the young poet'

very rightly. Most affectionately and gratefully yours,

E.B.B.

Do thank Mr. Chorley for me, will you?

[Footnote 106: Henry Fothergill Chorley (1808-1872) was one of the

principal members of the staff of the _Athenaeum_, especially in

literary and musical matters. Dr. Garnett (in the _Dictionary of

National Biography_) says of him, shortly after his first joining the

staff in 1833, that 'his articles largely contributed to maintain the

reputation the _Athenaeum_ had already acquired for impartiality at a

time when puffery was more rampant than ever before or since, and

when the only other London literary journal of any pretension was

notoriously venal.' He also wrote several novels and dramas, which met

with but little popular success.]

[Footnote 107: Compare Aurora Leigh's asseveration:

'By Keats' soul, the man who never stepped

In gradual progress like another man,

But, turning grandly on his central self,

Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years

And died, _not_ young.'

('Aurora Leigh,' book i.; _Poetical Works_, vi. 38.)]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Thursday, August 1844.

Thank you, my dearest Mrs. Martin, for your most kind letter, a reply

to which should certainly, as you desired, have met you at Colwall;

only, right or wrong, I have been flurried, agitated, put out of the

way altogether, by Stormie's and Henry's plan of going to Egypt. Ah,

now you are surprised. Now you think me excusable for being silent

two days beyond my time--yes, and _they have gone_, it is no vague

speculation. You know, or perhaps you don't know, that, a little time

back, papa bought a ship, put a captain and crew of his own in it, and

began to employ it in his favourite 'Via Lactea' of speculations. It

has been once to Odessa with wool, I think; and now it has gone to

Alexandria with coals. Stormie was wild to go to both places; and with

regard to the last, papa has yielded. And Henry goes too. This was all

arranged weeks ago, but nothing was said of it until last Monday

to me; and when I heard it, I was a good deal moved of course, and

although resigned now to their having their way in it, and their

_pleasure_, which is better than their way, still I feel I have

entered a new anxiety, and shall not be quite at ease again till they

return....

And now to thank you, my ever-dearest Mrs. Martin, for your kind and

welcome letter from the Lakes. I knew quite at the first page, and

long before you said a word specifically, that dear Mr. Martin was

better, and think that such a scene, even from under an umbrella, must

have done good to the soul and body of both of you. I wish I could

have looked through your eyes for once. But I suppose that neither

through yours, nor through my own, am I ever likely to behold that

sight. In the meantime it is with considerable satisfaction that I

hear of your _failure of Wordsworth_, which was my salvation in a very

awful sense. Why, if you had done such a thing, you would have put me

to the shame of too much honor. The speculation consoles me entirely

for your loss in respect to Rydal Hall and its poet. By the way, I

heard the other day that Rogers, who was intending to visit him, said,

'It is a bad time of year for it. The god is on his pedestal; and

can only give gestures to his worshippers, and no conversation to his

friends.' ...

Although you did not find a letter from me on your return to Colwall,

I do hope that you found _me_--viz. my book, which Mr. Burden took

charge of, and promised to deliver or see delivered. When you have

read it, _do_ let me hear your own and Mr. Martin's true impression;

and whether you think it worse or better than 'The Seraphim.' The only

review which has yet appeared or had time to appear has been a very

kind and cordial one in the 'Athenaeum.' ...

Your ever affectionate

BA.

_To Mr. Westwood_

August 31, 1844.

My dear Mr. Westwood,--I send you the manuscript you ask for, and also

my certificate that, although I certainly was once a little girl,

yet I never in my life had fair hair, or received lessons when you

mention. I think a cousin of mine, now dead, may have done it. The

'Barrett Barrett' seems to specify my family. I have a little cousin

with bright fair hair at this moment who is an Elizabeth Barrett (the

subject of my 'Portrait'[108]), but then she is a 'Georgiana' besides,

and your friend must refer to times past. My hair is very dark indeed,

and always was, as long as I remember, and also I have a friend who

makes serious affidavit that I have never changed (except by being

rather taller) since I was a year old. Altogether, you cannot make a

case of identity out, and I am forced to give up the glory of being so

long remembered for my cleverness.

You do wrong in supposing me inclined to underrate Mr. Melville's

power. He is inclined to High-Churchism, and to such doctrines as

apostolical succession, and I, who, am a Dissenter, and a believer in

a universal Christianity, recoil from the exclusive doctrine.

But then, that is not depreciatory of his power and eloquence--surely

not.

E.B.

[Footnote 108: _Poetical Works_, iii. 172.]

_To Mr. Chorley_

50 Wimpole Street: Monday.

[About the end of August 1844.]

Dear Mr. Chorley,--Kindnesses are more frequent things with me than

gladnesses, but I thank you earnestly for both in the letter I have

this moment received.[109] You have given me a quick sudden pleasure

which goes deeper (I am very sure) than self-love, for it must be

something better than vanity that brings the tears so near the eyes. I

thank you, dear Mr. Chorley.

After all, we are not quite strangers. I have had some early

encouragement and direction from you, and much earlier (and later)

literary pleasures from such of your writings as did not refer to me.

I have studied 'Music and Manners'[110] under you, and found an excuse

for my love of romance-reading from your grateful fancy. Then, as dear

Miss Mitford's friend, you could not help being (however against your

will!) a little my acquaintance; and this she daringly promised to

make you in reality some day, till I took the fervour for prophecy.

Altogether I am justified, while I thank you as a stranger, to say one

more word as a friend, and _that_ shall be the best word--'_May God

bless you_!' The trials with which He tries us all are different, but

our faces may be turned towards the end in cheerfulness, for '_to_ the

end He has loved us.' I remain,

Very faithfully, your obliged

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

You may trust me with the secret of your kindness to me. It shall not

go farther.

[Footnote 109: A summary of its contents is given in the next letter

but one.]

[Footnote 110: _Music and Manners in France and Germany: a Series of

Travelling Sketches of Art and Society_, published by Mr. Chorley in

1841.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

Monday, September 1, 1844.

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--I thank you for the Cyprus, and also for a still

sweeter amreeta--your praise. Certainly to be praised as you praise

me might well be supposed likely to turn a sager head than mine, but

I feel that (with all my sensitive and grateful appreciation of such

words) I am removed rather below than above the ordinary temptations

of vanity. Poetry is to me rather a passion than an ambition, and

the gadfly which drives me along that road pricks deeper than an

expectation of fame could do.

Moreover, there will be plenty of counter-irritation to prevent me

from growing feverish under your praises. And as a beginning, I hear

that the 'John Bull' newspaper has cut me up with sanguinary gashes,

for the edification of its Sabbath readers. I have not seen it yet,

but I hear so. The 'Drama' is the particular victim. Do not send for

the paper. I will let you have it, if you should wish for it.

One thing is left to me to say. Arabel told you of a letter I had

received from a professional critic, and I am sorry that she should

have told you so without binding you to secrecy on the point at the

same time. In fact, the writer of the letter begged me _not_ to speak

of it, and I took an engagement to him _not_ to speak of it. Now it

would be very unpleasant to me, and dishonorable to me, if, after

entering into this engagement, the circumstance of the letter should

come to be talked about. Of course you will understand that I do not

object to your having been informed of the thing, only Arabel should

have remembered to ask you not to mention again the name of the critic

who wrote to me.

May God bless you, my very dear friend. I drink thoughts of you in

Cyprus every day.

Your ever affectionate

ELIBET.

There is no review in the 'Examiner' yet, nor any continuation in the

'Athenaeum.'[111]

[Footnote 111: The _Athenaeum_ had reserved the two longer poems, the

'Drama of Exile' and the 'Vision of Poets,' for possible notice in a

second article, which, however, never appeared.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

September 10, 1844.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I will not lose a post in assuring you that

I was not silent because of any disappointment from your previous

letter. I could only feel the _kindness_ of that letter, and this was

certainly the chief and uppermost feeling at the time of reading it,

and since. Your preference of 'The Seraphim' one other person besides

yourself has acknowledged to me in the same manner, and although I

myself--perhaps from the natural leaning to last works, and perhaps

from a wise recognition of the complete failure of the poem called

'The Seraphim '--do disagree with you, yet I can easily forgive you

for such a thought, and believe that you see sufficient grounds for

entertaining it. More and more I congratulate myself (at any rate)

for the decision I came to at the last moment, and in the face of

some persuasions, to call the book 'Poems,' instead of trusting its

responsibility to the 'Drama,' by such a title as 'A Drama of Exile,

and Poems.' It is plain, as I anticipated, that for one person who is

ever so little pleased with the 'Drama,' fifty at least will like the

smaller poems. And perhaps they are right. The longer sustaining of a

subject requires, of course, more power, and I may have failed in it

altogether.

Yes, I think I may say that I am satisfied so far with the aspect of

things in relation to the book. You see there has scarcely been time

yet to give any except a sanguine or despondent judgment--I mean,

there is scarcely room yet for forming a very rational inference of

what will ultimately be, without the presentiments of hope or fear.

The book came out too late in August for any chance of a mention in

the September magazines, and at the dead time of year, when the

very critics were thinking more of holiday innocence than of their

carnivorous instincts. This will not hurt it ultimately, although it

might have hurt a _novel_. The regular critics will come back to it;

and in the meantime the newspaper critics are noticing it all round,

with more or less admissions to its advantage. The 'Atlas' is the best

of the newspapers for literary notices; and it spoke graciously on

the whole; though I do protest against being violently attached to

a 'school.' I have faults enough, I know; but it is just to say that

they are at least my own. Well, then! It is true that the 'Westminster

Review' says briefly what is great praise, and promises to take the

earliest opportunity of reviewing me 'at large.' So that with regard

to the critics, there seems to be a good prospect. Then I have had

some very pleasant private letters--one from Carlyle; an oath from

Miss Martineau to give her whole mind to the work and tell me her free

and full opinion, which I have not received yet; an assurance from an

acquaintance of Mrs. Jameson that she was much pleased. But the letter

which pleased me most was addressed to me by a professional critic,

personally unknown to me, who wrote to say that he had traced me up,

step by step, ever since I began to print, and that my last volumes

were so much better than any preceding them, and were such _living

books_, that they restored to him the impulses of his youth and

constrained him to thank me for the pleasant emotions they had

excited. I cannot say the name of the writer of this letter, because

he asked me not to do so, but of course it was very pleasant to read.

Now you will not call me vain for speaking of this. I would not

speak of it; only I want (you see) to prove to you how faithfully

and gratefully I have a trust in your kindness and sympathy. It is

certainly the best kindness to speak the truth to me. I have written

those poems as well as I could, and I hope to write others better. I

have not reached my own ideal; and I cannot expect to have satisfied

other people's expectation. But it is (as I sometimes say) the least

ignoble part of me, that I love poetry better than I love my own

successes in it.

I am glad that you like 'The Lost Bower.' The scene of that poem is

the wood above the garden at Hope End.

It is very true, my dearest Mrs. Martin, all that you say about the

voyage to Alexandria. And I do not feel the anxiety I _thought I

should_. In fact, _I am surprised to feel so little anxiety_. Still,

when they are at home again, I shall be happier than I am now, _that_

I feel strongly besides.

What I missed most in your first letter was what I do not miss in the

second, the good news of dear Mr. Martin. Both he and you are very

vainglorious, I suppose, about O'Connell; but although I was delighted

on every account at his late victory,[112] or rather at the late

victory of justice and constitutional law, he never was a hero of mine

and is not likely to become one. If he had been (by the way) a hero of

mine, I should have been quite ashamed of him for being so unequal to

his grand position as was demonstrated by the speech from the balcony.

Such poetry in the position, and such prose in the speech! He has not

the stuff in him of which heroes are made. There is a thread of cotton

everywhere crossing the silk....

With our united love to both of you,

Ever, dearest Mrs. Martin, most affectionately yours,

BA.

[Footnote 112: The reversal by the House of Lords of his conviction in

Ireland for conspiracy, which the English Court of Queen's Bench had

confirmed.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Wednesday [about September 1844].

My dearest Mrs. Martin, ... Did I tell you that Miss Martineau had

promised and vowed to me to tell me the whole truth with respect to

the poems? Her letter did not come until a few days ago, and for a

full month after the publication; and I was so fearful of the probable

sentence that my hands shook as they broke the seal. But such a

pleasant letter! I have been overjoyed with it. She says that her

'predominant impression is of the _originality_'--very pleasant to

hear. I must not forget, however, to say that she complains of 'want

of variety' in the general effect of the drama, and that she 'likes

Lucifer less than anything in the two volumes.' You see how you have

high backers. Still she talks of 'immense advances,' which consoles me

again. In fact, there is scarcely a word to _require_ consolation

in her letter, and what did not please me least--nay, to do myself

justice, what put all the rest out of my head for some minutes with

joy--is the account she gives of herself. For she is better and likely

still to be better; she has recovered appetite and sleep, and lost the

most threatening symptoms of disease; she has been out for the first

time for four years and a half, lying on the grass flat, she says,

with my books open beside her day after day. (That _does_ sound vain

of me, but I cannot resist the temptation of writing it!) And

the means--the means! Such means you would never divine! It is

_mesmerism_. She is thrown into the magnetic trance twice a day; and

the progress is manifest; and the hope for the future clear. Now,

what do you both think? Consider what a case it is! No case of a

weak-minded woman and a nervous affection; but of the most manlike

woman in the three kingdoms--in the best sense of man--a woman gifted

with admirable fortitude, as well as exercised in high logic, a woman

of sensibility and of imagination certainly, but apt to carry her

reason unbent wherever she sets her foot; given to utilitarian

philosophy and the habit of logical analysis; and suffering under a

disease which has induced change of structure and yielded to no tried

remedy! Is it not wonderful, and past expectation? She suggests that

I should try the means--but I understand that in cases like mine the

remedy has done harm instead of good, by over-exciting the system. But

her experience will settle the question of the reality of magnetism

with a whole generation of infidels. For my own part, I have long been

a believer, _in spite of papa_. Then I have had very kind letters from

Mrs. Jameson, the 'Ennuyée'[113] and from Mr. Serjeant Talfourd and

some less famous persons. And a poet with a Welsh name wrote to me

yesterday to say that he was writing a poem 'similar to my "Drama of

Exile,"' and begged me to subscribe to it. Now I tell you all this to

make you smile, and because some of it will interest you more gravely.

It will prove to dear unjust Mr. Martin that I do not distrust your

sympathy. How could he think so of me? I am half vexed that he should

think so. Indeed--indeed I am not so morbidly vain. Why, if you had

told me that the books were without any sort of value in your eyes,

do you imagine that I should not have valued you, reverenced you

ever after for your truth, so sacred a thing in friendship? I really

believe it would have been my predominant feeling. But you proved your

truth without trying me so hardly; I had _both_ truth and praise from

you, and surely quite enough, and _more_ than enough, as many would

think, of the latter.

My dearest papa left us this morning to go for a few days into

Cornwall for the purpose of examining a quarry in which he has bought

or is about to buy shares, and he means to strike on for the Land's

End and to see Falmouth before he returns. It depresses me to think

of his being away; his presence or the sense of his nearness having

so much cheering and soothing influence with me; but it will be an

excellent change for him, even if he does not, as he expects, dig an

immense fortune out of the quarries....

Your affectionate and ever obliged

BA.

[Footnote 113: Mrs. Jameson's earliest book, and one which achieved

considerable popularity, was her _Diary of an Ennuyée_.]

_To Cornelius Mathews_

London, 50 Wimpole Street: October 1, 1844.

My dear Mr. Mathews,--I have just received your note, which, on the

principle of single sighs or breaths being wafted from Indies to the

poles, arrived quite safely, and I was very glad to have it. I shall

fall into monotony if I go on to talk of my continued warm sense of

your wonderful kindness to me, a stranger according to the manner of

men; and, indeed, I have just this moment been writing a note to

a friend two streets away, and calling it 'wonderful kindness.'

I cannot, however, of course, allow you to run the tether of your

impulse and furnish me with the reviews of my books and other things

you speak of at your own expense, and I should prefer, if you would

have the goodness to give the necessary direction to Messrs. Putnam

& Co., that they should send what would interest me to see, together

with a note of the pecuniary debt to themselves. I shall like to see

the reviews, of course; and that you should have taken the first word

of American judgment into your own mouth is a pleasant thought to

me, and leaves me grateful. In England I have no reason so far to

be otherwise than well pleased. There has not, indeed, been much yet

besides newspaper criticisms--except 'Ainsworth's Magazine,' which

is benignant!--there has not been time. The monthly reviews give

themselves 'pause' in such matters to set the plumes of their dignity,

and I am rather glad than otherwise not to have the first fruits of

their haste. The 'Atlas,' the best newspaper for literary reviews,

excepting always the 'Examiner,' who does not speak yet, is generous

to me, and I have reason to be satisfied with others. And our most

influential quarterly (after the 'Edinburgh' and right 'Quarterly'),

the 'Westminster Review,' promises an early paper with passing words

of high praise. What vexed me a little in one or two of the journals

was an attempt made to fix me in a school, and the calling me

a follower of Tennyson for my habit of using compound words,

noun-substantives, which I used to do before I knew a page of

Tennyson, and adopted from a study of our old English writers, and

Greeks and even Germans. The custom is so far from being peculiar to

Tennyson, that Shelley and Keats and Leigh Hunt are all redolent of

it, and no one can read our old poets without perceiving the leaning

of our Saxon to that species of coalition. Then I have had letters of

great kindness from 'Spirits of the Age,' whose praises are so many

crowns, and altogether am far from being out of spirits about the

prospect of my work. I am glad, however, that I gave the name of

'Poems' to the work instead of admitting the 'Drama of Exile' into the

title-page and increasing its responsibility; for one person who likes

the 'Drama,' ten like the other poems. Both Carlyle and Miss Martineau

select as favorite 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship,' which amuses and

surprises me somewhat. In that poem I had endeavoured to throw

conventionalities (turned asbestos for the nonce) into the fire of

poetry, to make them glow and glitter as if they were not dull things.

Well, I shall soon hear what _you_ like best--and worst. I wonder if

you have been very carnivorous with me! I tremble a little to think of

your hereditary claim to an instrument called the tomahawk. Still, I

am sure I shall have to think _most_, ever as now, of your kindness;

and _truth_ must be sacred to all of us, whether we have to suffer

or be glad by it. As for Mr. Horne, I cannot answer for what he has

received or not received. I had one note from him on silver paper

(fear of postage having reduced him to a transparency) from Germany,

and that is all, and I did not think him in good spirits in what he

said of himself. I will tell him what you have the goodness to say,

and something, too, on my own part. He has had a hard time of it with

his 'Spirit of the Age;' the attacks on the book here being bitter in

the extreme. Your 'Democratic' does not comfort him for the rest, by

the way, and, indeed, he is almost past comfort on the subject. I had

a letter the other day from Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, whom I do not know

personally, but who is about to publish a 'Living Author Dictionary,'

and who, by some association, talked of the effeminacy of 'the

American poets,' so I begged him to read your poems on 'Man' and

prepare an exception to his position. I wish to write more and must

not.

Most faithfully yours,

E.B.B.

Am I the first with the great and good news for America and England

that Harriet Martineau is better and likely to be better? She told me

so herself, and attributes the change to the agency of _mesmerism_.

_To H.S. Boyd_

October 4, 1844.

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--... As to 'The Lost Bower,' I am penitent about

having caused you so much disturbance. I sometimes fancy that a little

varying of the accents, though at the obvious expense of injuring

the smoothness of every line considered separately, gives variety

of cadence and fuller harmony to the general effect. But I do not

question that I deserve a great deal of blame on this point as on

others. Many lines in 'Isobel's Child' are very slovenly and weak from

a multitude of causes. I hope you will like 'The Lost Bower' better

when you try it again than you did at first, though I do not, of

course, expect that you will not see much to cry out against. The

subject of the poem was an actual fact of my childhood.

Oh, and I think I told you, when giving you the history of 'Lady

Geraldine's Courtship,' that I wrote the _thirteen_ last pages of it

in one day. I ought to have said _nineteen_ pages instead. But don't

tell anybody; only keep the circumstance in your mind when you need it

and see the faults. Nobody knows of it except you and Mr. Kenyon and

my own family for the reason I told you. I sent off that poem to the

press piece-meal, as I never in my life did before with any poem.

And since I wrote to you I have heard of Mr. Eagles, one of the first

writers in 'Blackwood' and a man of very refined taste, adding another

name to the many of those who have preferred it to anything in the

two volumes. He says that he has read it at least six times aloud to

various persons, and calls it a 'beautiful _sui generis_ drama.' On

which Mr. Kenyon observes that I am 'ruined for life, and shall be

sure never to take pains with any poem again.'

The American edition (did Arabel tell you?) was to be out in New

York a week ago, and was to consist of fifteen hundred copies in two

volumes, as in England.

She sends you the verses and asks you to make allowances for the delay

in doing so. I cannot help believing that if you were better read in

Wordsworth you would appreciate him better. Ever since I knew what

poetry is, I have believed in him as a great poet, and I do not

understand how reasonably there can be a doubt of it. Will you

remember that nearly all the first minds of the age have admitted

his power (without going to intrinsic evidence), and then say that

he _can_ be a mere Grub Street writer? It is not that he is only or

chiefly admired by the _profanum vulgus_, that he is a mere popular

and fashionable poet, but that men of genius in this and other

countries unite in confessing his genius. And is not this a

significant circumstance--significant, at least?...

Believe me, yourself, your affectionate and grateful

ELIBET B.B.

How kind you are, far too kind, about the Cyprus wine; I thank you

very much.

_To Mrs. Martin_

October 5, 1844.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--... Well, papa came back from Cornwall just

as I came back to my own room, and he was as pleased with his quarry

as I was to have the sight again of his face. During his absence,

Henrietta had a little polka (which did not bring the house down on

its knees), and I had a transparent blind put up in my open window.

There is a castle in the blind, and a castle gate-way, and two walks,

and several peasants, and groves of trees which rise in excellent

harmony with the fall of my green damask curtains--new, since you

saw me last. Papa insults me with the analogy of a back window in a

confectioner's shop, but is obviously moved when the sunshine lights

up the castle, notwithstanding. And Mr. Kenyon and everybody in

the house grow ecstatic rather than otherwise, as they stand in

contemplation before it, and tell me (what is obvious without their

evidence) that the effect is beautiful, and that the whole room

catches a light from it. Well, and then Mr. Kenyon has given me a new

table, with a rail round it to consecrate it from Flush's paws, and

large enough to hold all my varieties of vanities.

I had another letter from Miss Martineau the other day, and she says

she has a 'hat of her own, a parasol of her own,' and that she can

'walk a mile with ease.' _What do miracles mean_? Miracle or not,

however, one thing is certain--it is very joyful; and her own

sensations on being removed suddenly from the verge of the prospect

of a most painful death--a most painful and lingering death--must be

strange and overwhelming.

I hope I may hear soon from you that you had much pleasure at Clifton,

and some benefit in the air and change, and that dear Mr. Martin and

yourself are both as well as possible. Do you take in 'Punch'? If not,

you _ought_. Mr. Kenyon and I agreed the other day that we should be

more willing 'to take our politics' from 'Punch' than from any other

of the newspaper oracles. 'Punch' is very generous, and I like him for

everything, except for his rough treatment of Louis Philippe, whom

I believe to be a great man--for a king. And then, it is well worth

fourpence to laugh once a week. I do recommend 'Punch' to you.[114]

Douglas Jerrold is the editor, I fancy, and he has a troop of 'wits,'

such as Planché, Titmarsh, and the author of 'Little Peddlington,' to

support him....

Now I have written enough to tire you, I am sure. May God bless

you both! Did you read 'Coningsby,' that very able book, without

character, story, or specific teaching? It is well worth reading, and

worth wondering over. D'Israeli, who is a man of genius, has written,

nevertheless, books which will live longer, and move deeper. But

everybody should read 'Coningsby.' It is a sign of the times. Believe

me, my dearest Mrs. Martin,

Your very affectionate

BA.

_To John Kenyon_

Tuesday, October 8, 1844.

Thank you, my dearest cousin, for your kind little note, which I run

the chance of answering by that Wednesday's post you think you may

wait for. So (_via_ your table) I set about writing to you, and the

first word, of course, must be an expression of my contentment with

the 'Examiner' review. Indeed, I am more than contented--delighted

with it. I had some dread, vaguely fashioned, about the 'Examiner';

the very delay looked ominous. And then, I thought to myself, though

I did not say, that if Mr. Forster praised the verses on Flush to you,

it was just because he had no sympathy for anything else. But it is

all the contrary, you see, and I am the more pleased for the want of

previous expectation; and I must add that if _you_ were so kind as to

be glad of being associated with me by Mr. Forster's reference, _I_

was so _human_ as to be very very glad of being associated with _you_

by the same. Also you shall criticise 'Geraldine' exactly as you

like--mind, I don't think it all so rough as the extracts appear to

be, and some variety is attained by that playing at ball with

the _pause_, which causes the apparent roughness--still you shall

criticise 'Geraldine' exactly as you like. I have a great fancy for

writing some day a longer poem of a like class--a poem comprehending

the aspect and manners of modern life, and flinching at nothing of the

conventional. I think it might be done with good effect. You said once

that Tennyson had done it in 'Locksley Hall,' and I half agreed with

you. But looking at 'Locksley Hall' again, I find that not much has

been done in that _way_, noble and passionate and _full_ as the poem

is in other ways. But there is no story, no _manners_, no modern

allusion, except in the grand general adjuration to the 'Mother-age,'

and no approach to the treatment of a conventionality. But Crabbe, as

you say, has done it, and Campbell in his 'Theodore' in a few touches

was near to do it; but _Hayley_ clearly apprehends the species of poem

in his 'Triumphs of Temper' and 'Triumphs of Music,' and so did Miss

Seward, who called it the '_poetical novel_.' Now I do think that a

true poetical novel--modern, and on the level of the manners of the

day--might be as good a poem as any other, and much more popular

besides. Do you not think so?

I had a letter from dear Miss Mitford this morning, with yours, but I

can find nothing in it that you will care to hear again. She complains

of the vagueness of 'Coningsby,' and praises the French writers--a

sympathy between us, that last, which we wear hidden in our sleeves

for the sake of propriety. Not a word of coming to London, though I

asked. Neither have I heard again from Miss Martineau....

Ever most affectionately and gratefully yours,

E.B.B.

[Footnote 114: It will be remembered that 'Punch' had only been in

existence for three years at this time, which will account for this

apparently superfluous advice.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

October 15, 1844.

... Not a word more have I heard from Miss Martineau; and shall not

soon, perhaps, as she is commanded not to write, not to read--to do

nothing, in fact, except the getting better. I am not, I confess,

quite satisfied myself. But she herself appears to be so altogether,

and she speaks of '_symptoms_ having given way,' implying a structural

change. Yes, I use the common phrase in respect to mesmerism, and

think 'there is something in it.' Only I think, besides, that,

if something, there must be a great deal in it. Clairvoyance has

precisely the same evidence as the phenomenon of the trance has, and

scientific and philosophical minds are recognising all the phenomena

_as facts_ on all sides of us. Mr. Kenyon's is the best distinction,

and the immense quantity of _humbug_ which embroiders the truth

over and over, and round and round, makes it needful: 'I believe in

mesmerism, but not in _mesmerists_.'

We have had no other letter from our Egyptians, but can wait a little

longer without losing our patience.

The blind rises in favour, and the ivy would not fall, if it would but

live. Alas! I am going to try _guano_ as a last resource. You see, in

painting the windows, papa was forced to have it taken down, and the

ivy that grows on ruins and oaks is not usually taken down 'for the

nonce.' I think I shall have a myrtle grove in two or three large pots

inside the window. I have a mind to try it.

I heard twice from dear Mr. Kenyon at Dover, where he was detained by

the weather, but not since his entrance into France. Which is grand

enough word for the French Majesty itself--'entrance into France.' By

the way, I do hope you have some sympathy with me in my respect for

the King of the French--that right kingly king, Louis Philippe. If

France had _borne_ more liberty, he would not have withheld it, and,

for the rest, and in all truly royal qualities, he is the noblest

king, according to my idea, in Europe--the most royal king in the

encouragement of art and literature, and in the honoring of artists

and men of letters. Let a young unknown writer accomplish a successful

tragedy, and the next day he sits at the king's table--not in a

metaphor, but face to face. See how different the matter is in our

court, where the artists are shown up the back stairs, and where no

poet (even by the back stairs) can penetrate, unless so fortunate

as to be a banker also. What is the use of kings and queens in these

days, except to encourage arts and letters? Really I cannot see.

Anybody can hunt an otter out of a box--who has nerve enough.

I had a letter from America to-day, and heard that my book was not

published there until the fifth of this October. Still, a few copies

had preceded the publication, and made way among the critics, and

several reviews were in the course of germinating very greenly. Yes,

I was delighted with the 'Examiner,' and all the more so from having

interpreted the long delay of the notice, the gloomiest manner

possible. My friends try to persuade me that the book is making some

impression, and I am willing enough to be convinced. Thank you for all

your kind sympathy, my dear friend.

Now, do write to me soon again! Have you read Dr. Arnold's Life? I

have not, but am very anxious to do so, from the admirable extracts

in the 'Examiner' of last Saturday, and also from what I hear of it in

other quarters. That Dr. Arnold must have been _a man_, in the largest

and noblest sense. May God bless you, both of you! I think of you,

dearest Mrs. Martin, much, and remain

Your very affectionate

BA.

_To John Kenyon_

Saturday, October 29, 1844.

The moral of your letter, my dearest cousin, certainly is that no

green herb of a secret will spring up and flourish between you and me.

The loss of Flush was a secret. My aunt's intention of coming to

England (for I know not how to explain what she said to you, but by

the supposition of an unfulfilled intention!) was a secret. And Mr.

Chorley's letter to me was a third secret. All turned into light!

For the last, you may well praise me for discretion. The letter he

wrote was pleasanter to me than many of the kindnesses (apart from

your own) occasioned by my book--and when you asked me once 'what

letters I had received,' if ever a woman deserved to be canonised

for her silence, _I_ did! But the effort was necessary--for he

particularly desired that I would not mention to 'our common friends'

the circumstance of his having written to me; and 'common friends'

could only stand for 'Mr. Kenyon and Miss Mitford.' Of course what you

tell me, of his liking the poems better still, is delightful to hear;

but he reviewed them in the 'Athenaeum' surely! The review we read in

the 'Athenaeum' was by his hand--could not be mistaken ...

Well; but Flushie! It is too true that he has been lost--lost and won;

and true besides that I was a good deal upset by it _meo more_; and

that I found it hard to eat and sleep as usual while he was in the

hands of his enemies. It is a secret too. We would not tell papa of

it. Papa would have been angry with the unfortunate person who took

Flush out without a chain; and would have kicked against the pricks of

the necessary bribing of the thief in order to the getting him back.

Therefore we didn't tell papa; and as I had a very bad convenient

headache the day my eyes were reddest, I did not see him (except once)

till Flush was on the sofa again. As to the thieves, you are very kind

to talk daggers at them; and I feel no inclination to say 'Don't.' It

is quite too bad and cruel. And think of their exceeding insolence

in taking Flush away from this very door, while Arabel was waiting to

have the door opened on her return from her walk; and in observing (as

they gave him back for six guineas and a half) that they intended to

have him again at the earliest opportunity and that _then_ they must

have _ten_ guineas! I tell poor Flushie (while he looks very earnestly

in my face) that he and I shall be ruined at last, and that I shall

have no money to buy him cakes; but the worst is the anxiety! Whether

I am particularly silly, or not, I don't know; they say here, that I

am; but it seems to me impossible for anybody who really cares for a

dog, to think quietly of his being in the hands of those infamous men.

And then I know how poor Flushie must feel it. When he was brought

home, he began to cry in his manner, whine, as if his heart was full!

It was just what I was inclined to do myself--' and thus was Flushie

lost and won.'

But we are both recovered now, thank you; and intend to be very

prudent for the future. I am delighted to think of your being in

England; it is the next best thing to your being in London. In regard

to Miss Martineau, I agree with you word for word; but I cannot

overcome an additional _horror_, which you do not express, or feel

probably.

There is an excellent refutation of Puseyism in the 'Edinburgh

Review'--by whom? and I have been reading besides the admirable

paper by Macaulay in the same number. And now I must be done; having

resolved to let you hear without a post's delay. Otherwise I might

have American news for you, as I hear that a packet has come in.

My brothers arrived in great spirits at Malta, after a _three weeks'

voyage_ from Gibraltar; and must now be in Egypt, I think and trust.

May God bless you, my dear cousin.

Most affectionately yours,

E.B.B.

_To John Kenyan_

50 Wimpole Street: November 5, 1844.

Well, but am I really so bad? ' _Et tu_!' Can _you_ call me careless?

Remember all the altering of manuscript and proof--and remember how

the obscurities used to fly away before your cloud-compelling, when

you were the Jove of the criticisms! That the books (I won't call

them _our_ books when I am speaking of the faults) are remarkable for

defects and superfluities of evil, I can see quite as well as another;

but then I won't admit that ' it comes' of my carelessness, and

refusing to take pains. On the contrary, my belief is, that very few

writers called ' correct ' who have selected classical models to work

from, pay more laborious attention than I do habitually to the forms

of thought and expression. ' Lady Geraldine ' was an exception in her

whole history. If I write fast sometimes (and the historical fact is

that what has been written fastest, has pleased most), l am not apt

to print without consideration. I appeal to Philip sober, if I am!

My dearest cousin, do remember! As to the faults, I do not think of

defending them, be very sure. My consolation is, that I may try to do

better in time, if I may talk of time. The worst fault of all, as far

as expression goes (the adjective-substantives, whether in prose or

verse, I cannot make up my mind to consider faulty), is that kind of

obscurity which is the same thing with inadequate expression. Be very

sure--try to be very sure--that I am not obstinate and self-opiniated

beyond measure. To _you_ in case, who have done so much for me, and

who think of me so more than kindly, I feel it to be both duty and

pleasure to defer and yield. Still, you know, we could not, if we were

ten years about it, alter down the poems to the terms of all these

reviewers. You would not desire it, if it were possible. I do not

remember that you suggested any change in the verse on Aeschylus. The

critic[115] mistakes my allusion, which was to the fact that in the

acting of the Eumenides, when the great tragic poet did actually

'frown as the gods did,' women fell down fainting from the benches.

I did not refer to the effect of his human countenance 'during

composition.' But I am very grateful to the reviewer whoever he may

be--very--and with need. See how the 'Sun' shines in response to

'Blackwood' (thank you for sending me that notice), when previously we

had had but a wintry rag from the same quarter! No; if I am not spoilt

by _your kindness_, I am not likely to be so by any of these exoteric

praises, however beyond what I expected or deserved. And then I am

like a bird with one wing broken. Throw it out of the window; and

after the first feeling of pleasure in liberty, it falls heavily. I

have had moments of great pleasure in hearing whatever good has been

thought of the poems; but the feeling of _elation_ is too strong or

rather too _long_ for me....

Can it be true that Mr. Newman has at last joined the Church of

Rome?[116] If it is true, it will do much to prove to the most

illogical minds the real character of the late movement. It will prove

what the _point of sight_ is, as by the drawing of a straight line.

Miss Mitford told me that he had lately sent a message to a R.

Catholic convert from the English Church, to the effect--'you have

done a good deed, but not at a right time.' It can but be a question

of time, indeed, to the whole party; at least to such as are

logical--and honest.... [_Unsigned_]

[Footnote 115: In _Blackwood_.]

[Footnote 116: Newman did not actually enter the Church of Rome until

nearly a year later, in October 1845.]

_To John Kenyan_

50 Wimpole Street: November 8, 1844.

Thank you, my dear dear cousin, for the kind thought of sending me Mr.

Eagles's letter, and most for your own note. You know we _both_ saw

that he couldn't have written the paper in question; we _both_ were

poets and prophets by that sign, but I hope he understands that I

shall gratefully remember what his intention was. As to his 'friend'

who told him that I had 'imitated Tennyson,' why I can only say and

feel that it is very particularly provoking to hear such things said,

and that I wish people would find fault with my 'metre' in the place

of them. In the matter of 'Geraldine' I shall not be puffed up. I

shall take to mind what you suggest. Of course, if you find it hard to

read, it must be my fault. And then the fact of there being a _story_

to a poem will give a factitious merit in the eyes of many critics,

which could not be an occasion of vainglory to the consciousness of

the most vainglorious of writers. You made me smile by your suggestion

about the aptitude of critics aforesaid for courting Lady Geraldines.

Certes--however it may be--the poem has had more attention than its

due. Oh, and I must tell you that I had a letter the other day

from Mr. Westwood (one of my correspondents unknown) referring to

'Blackwood,' and observing on the mistake about Goethe. 'Did you not

mean "fell" the verb,' he said, 'or do _I_ mistake?' So, you see, some

people in the world did actually understand what I meant. I am eager

to prove that possibility sometimes.

How full of life of mind Mr. Eagles's letter is. Such letters always

bring me to think of Harriet Martineau's pestilent plan of doing to

destruction half of the intellectual life of the world, by suppressing

every mental breath breathed through the post office. She was not in

a state of clairvoyance when she said such a thing. I have not heard

from her, but you observed what the 'Critic' said of William Howitt's

being empowered by her to declare the circumstances of her recovery?

Again and again have I sent for Dr. Arnold's 'Life,' and I do hope to

have it to-day. I am certain, by the extracts, besides your opinion,

that I shall be delighted with it.

Why shouldn't Miss Martineau's apocalyptic housemaid[117] tell us

whether Flush has a soul, and what is its 'future destination'? As

to the fact of his soul, I have long had a strong opinion on it. The

'grand peut-être,' to which 'without revelation' the human argument is

reduced, covers dog-nature with the sweep of its fringes.

Did you ever read Bulwer's 'Eva, or the Unhappy Marriage'? _That_ is

a sort of poetical novel, with modern manners inclusive. But Bulwer,

although a poet in prose, writes all his rhythmetical compositions

somewhat prosaically, providing an instance of that curious difference

which exists between the poetical writer and the poet. It is easier

to give the instance than the reason, but I suppose the cause of the

rhythmetical impotence must lie somewhere in the want of the power of

concentration. For is it not true that the most prolix poet is capable

of briefer expression than the least prolix prose writer, or am I

wrong?...

Your ever affectionate

E.B.B.

[Footnote 117: Miss Martineau, besides having been cured by mesmerism

herself, was blest with a housemaid who had visions under the same

influence, concerning which Miss Martineau subsequently wrote at great

length in the _Athenaeum_.]

_To Cornelius Mathews_

50 Wimpole Street: November 14, 1844.

My dear Mr. Mathews,--I write to tell you--only that there is nothing

to tell--only in guard of my gratitude, lest you should come to

think all manner of evil of me and of my supposed propensity to let

everything pass like Mr. Horne's copies of the American edition of his

work, _sub silentio_. Therefore I must write, and you are to please to

understand that I have not up to this moment received either letter or

book by the packet of October 10 which was charged, according to your

intimation, with so much. I, being quite out of patience and out of

breath with expectation, have repeatedly sent to Mr. Putnam, and he

replies with undisturbed politeness that the ship has come in, and

that his part and lot in her, together with mine, remain at the

disposal of the Custom-house officers, and may remain some time

longer. So you see how it is. I am waiting--simply _waiting_, and it

is better to let you know that I am not forgetting instead.

In the meantime, your kindness will be glad to learn of the prosperity

of my poems in my own country. I am more than satisfied in my most

sanguine hope for them, and a little surprised besides. The critics

have been good to me. 'Blackwood' and 'Tait' have this month both been

generous, and the 'New Monthly' and 'Ainsworth's Magazine' did what

they could. Then I have the 'Examiner' in my favor, and such heads and

hearts as are better and purer than the purely critical, and I am very

glad altogether, and very grateful, and hope to live long enough to

acknowledge, if not to justify, much unexpected kindness. Of course,

some hard criticism is mixed with the liberal sympathy, as you will

see in 'Blackwood,' but some of it I deserve, even in my own eyes; and

all of it I am willing to be patient under. The strange thing is, that

without a single personal friend among these critics, they should have

expended on me so much 'gentillesse,' and this strangeness I feel

very sensitively. Mr. Horne has not returned to England yet, and in a

letter which I received from him some fortnight ago he desired to have

my book sent to him to Germany, just as if he never meant to return to

England again. I answered his sayings, and reiterated, in a way

that would make you smile, my information about your having sent the

American copies to him. I made my _oyez_ very plain and articulate.

He won't say again that he never heard of it--be sure of _that_. Well,

and then Mr. Browning is not in England either, so that whatever you

send for _him_ must await his return from the east or the west or

the south, wherever he is. The new spirit of the age is a wandering

spirit. Mr. Dickens is in Italy. Even Miss Mitford _talks_ of going to

France, which is an extreme case for _her_. Do you never feel inclined

to flash across the Atlantic to us, or can you really remain still in

one place?

I must not forget to assure you, dear Mr. Mathews, as I may

conscientiously do, even before I have looked into or received the

'Democratic Review,' that whatever fault you may find with me, my

strongest feeling on reading your article will or must be _the sense

of your kindness_. Of course I do not expect, nor should I wish, that

your personal interest in me (proved in so many ways) would destroy

your critical faculty in regard to me. Such an expectation, if I had

entertained it, would have been scarcely honorable to either of us,

and I may assure you that I never did entertain it. No; be at

rest about the article. It is not likely that I shall think it

'inadequate.' And I may as well mention in connection with it that

before you spoke of reviewing me _I_ (in my despair of Mr. Horne's

absence, and my impotency to assist your book) had thrown into my

desk, to watch for some opportunity of publication, a review of your

'Poems on Man,' from my own hand, and that I am still waiting and

considering and taking courage before I send it to some current

periodical. There is a difficulty--there is a feeling of shyness on

my part, because, as I told you, I have no personal friend or

introduction among the pressmen or the critics, and because the

'Athenaeum,' which I should otherwise turn to first, has already

treated of your work, and would not, of course, consent to reconsider

an expressed opinion. Well, I shall do it somewhere. Forgive me the

_appearance_ of my impotency under a general aspect.

Ah, you cannot guess at the estate of poetry in the eyes of even

such poetical English publishers as Mr. Moxon, who can write sonnets

himself. Poetry is in their eyes just a desperate speculation. A poet

must have tried his public before he tries the publisher--that is,

before he expects the publisher to run a risk for him. But I will make

any effort you like to suggest for any work of yours; I only tell you

how _things are_. By the way, if I ever told you that Tennyson was

ill, I may as rightly tell you now that he is well, again, or was

when I last heard of him. I do not know him personally. Also Harriet

Martineau can walk five miles a day with ease, and believes in

mesmerism with all her strength. Mr. Putnam had the goodness to write

and open his reading room to me, who am in prison instead in mine.

May God bless you. Do let me hear from you soon, and believe me ever

your friend,

E.B. BARRETT.

_To Mrs. Martin_

November 16, 1844.

My dearest Mrs. Martin, ... To-day I perceive in the 'contents' of the

new 'Westminster Review' that my poems are reviewed in it, and I hope

that you will both be interested enough in my fortunes to read at the

library what may be said of them. Did George tell you that he imagined

(as I also did) the 'Blackwood' paper to be by Mr. Phillimore the

barrister? Well, Mr. Phillimore denies it altogether, has in fact

quarrelled with Christopher North, and writes no more for him, so that

I am quite at a loss now where to carry my gratitude.

Do write to me soon. I hear that everybody should read Dr. Arnold's

'Life.' Do you know also 'E[=o]then,' a work of genius? You have read,

perhaps, Hewitt's 'Visits to Remarkable Places' in the first series

and second; and Mrs. Jameson's 'Visits and Sketches' and 'Life

in Mexico.' Do you know the 'Santa Fé Expedition,' and Custine's

'Russia,' and 'Forest Life' by Mrs. Clavers? You will think that my

associative process is in a most disorderly state, by all this running

up and down the stairs of all sorts of subjects, in the naming of

books. I would write a list, more as a list should be written, if I

could see my way better, and this will do for a beginning in any case.

You do not like romances, I believe, as I do, and then nearly every

romance now-a-days sets about pulling the joints of one's heart and

soul out, as a process of course. 'Ellen Middleton' (which I have

not read yet) is said to be very painful. Do you know Leigh Hunt's

exquisite essays called 'The Indicator and Companion' &c., published

by Moxon? I hold them at once in delight and reverence. May God bless

you both.

I am ever your affectionate

BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_

50 Wimpole Street:

Tuesday, November 26, 1844 [postmark].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I thank you much for your little notes; and

you know too well how my sympathy answers you, 'as face to face in a

glass,' for me to assure you of it here. Your account of yourselves

altogether I take to be satisfactory, because I never expected anybody

to gain strength very _rapidly_ while in the actual endurance of hard

medical discipline. I am glad you have found out a trustworthy adviser

at Dover, but I feel nevertheless that you may _both trust_ and _hope_

in Dr. Bright, of whom I heard the very highest praises the other

day....

Now really I don't know why I should fancy you to be so deeply

interested in Dr. Bright, that all this detail should be necessary.

What I _do_ want you to be interested in, is in Miss Martineau's

mesmeric experience,[118] for a copy of which, in the last

'Athenaeum,' I have sent ever since yesterday, in the intention of

sending it to you. You will admit it to be curious as philosophy, and

beautiful as composition; for the rest, I will not answer. Believing

in mesmerism as an agency, I hesitate to assent to the necessary

connection between Miss Martineau's cure and the power; and also I am

of opinion that unbelievers will not very generally become converts

through her representations. There is a tone of exaltation which

will be observed upon, and one or two sentences are suggestive to

scepticism. I will send it to you when I get the number. I understand

that an intimate friend of hers (a lady) travelled down from the

south of England to Tynemouth, simply to try to prevent the public

exposition, but could not prevail. Mr. Milnes has, besides, been her

visitor. He is fully a believer, she says, and affirms to having seen

the same phenomena in the East, but regards the whole subject with

_horror_. This still appears to be Mrs. Jameson's feeling, as you

know it is mine. Mrs. Jameson came again to this door with a note, and

overcoming by kindness, was let in on Saturday last; and sate with me

for nearly an hour, and so ran into what my sisters call 'one of my

sudden intimacies' that there was an embrace for a farewell. Of course

she won my affections through my vanity (Mr. Martin will be sure to

say, so I hasten to anticipate him) and by exaggerations about my

poetry; but really, and although my heart beat itself almost to pieces

for fear of seeing her as she walked upstairs, I do think I should

have liked her _without the flattery_. She is very light--has the

lightest of eyes, the lightest of complexions; no eyebrows, and what

looked to me like very pale red hair, and thin lips of no colour at

all. But with all this indecision of exterior the expression is

rather acute than soft; and the conversation in its principal

characteristics, analytical and examinative; throwing out no thought

which is not as clear as glass--critical, in fact, in somewhat of

an austere sense. I use 'austere,' of course, in its intellectual

relation, for nothing in the world could be kinder, or more graciously

kind, than her whole manner and words were to me. She is coming again

in two or three days, she says. Yes, and she said of Miss Martineau's

paper in the 'Athenaeum,' that she very much doubted the wisdom of

publishing it now; and that for the public's sake, if not for her own,

Miss M. should have waited till the excitement of recovered health

had a little subsided. She said of mesmerism altogether that she was

inclined to believe it, but had not finally made up her convictions.

She used words so exactly like some I have used myself that I must

repeat them, 'that if there was _anything_ in it, there was _so much_,

it became scarcely possible to limit consequences, and the subject

grew awful to contemplate.' ...

On Saturday I had some copies of my American edition, which dazzle the

English one; and one or two reviews, transatlantically transcendental

in 'oilie flatterie.' And I heard yesterday from the English publisher

Moxon, and he was 'happy to tell me that the work was selling very

well,' and this without an inquiry on my part. To say the truth, I

was _afraid_ to inquire. It is good news altogether. The 'Westminster

Review' won't be out till next month.

Wordsworth is so excited about the railroad that his wife persuaded

him to go away to recover his serenity, but he has returned raging

worse than ever. He says that fifty members of Parliament have

promised him their opposition. He is wrong, I think, but I also

consider that if the people remembered his genius and his age, and

suspended the obnoxious Act for a few years, they would be right....

May God bless you both.

Most affectionately yours,

BA.

[Footnote 118: The _Athenaum_ of November 23 contained the first of

a series of articles by Miss Martineau, giving her experiences of

mesmerism.]

_To James Martin_

December 10, 1844.

I have been thinking of you, my dear Mr. Martin, more and more the

colder it has been, and had made up my mind to write to-day, let me

feel as dull as I might. So, the vane only turns to _you_ instead

of to dearest Mrs. Martin in consequence of your letter--your letter

makes _that_ difference. I should have written to Dover in any

case....

You are to know that Miss Martineau's mesmeric experience is only

peculiar as being Harriet Martineau's, otherwise it exhibits the mere

commonplaces of the agency. You laugh, I see. I wish I could laugh

too. I mean, I seriously wish that I could disbelieve in the reality

of the power, which is in every way most repulsive to me....

Mrs. Martin is surprised at me and others on account of our 'horror.'

Surely it is a natural feeling, and she would herself be liable to it

if she were _more credulous_. The agency seems to me like the shaking

of the flood-gates placed by the Divine Creator between the unprepared

soul and the unseen world. Then--the subjection of the will and vital

powers of one individual to those of another, to the extent of the

apparent solution of the very identity, is abhorrent from me. And then

(as to the expediency of the matter, and to prove how far believers

may be carried) there is even now a religious sect at Cheltenham, of

persons who call themselves advocates of the 'third revelation,' and

profess to receive their system of theology entirely from patients in

the sleep.

In the meantime, poor Miss Martineau, as the consequence of her desire

to speak the truth as she apprehends it, is overwhelmed with atrocious

insults from all quarters. For my own part I would rather fall into

the hands of God than of man, and suffer as she did in the body,

instead of being the mark of these cruel observations. But she has

singular strength of mind, and calmly continues her testimony.

Miss Mitford writes to me: 'Be sure it is _all true_. I see it every

day in my Jane'--her maid, who is mesmerised for deafness, but not,

I believe, with much success curatively. As a remedy, the success

has been far greater in the Martineau case than in others. With

Miss Mitford's maid, the sleep is, however, produced; and the girl

professed, at the third _séance_, to be able to _see behind her_.

I am glad I have so much interesting matter to look forward to in the

'Eldon Memoirs' as Pincher's biography. I am only in the first volume.

Are English chancellors really made of such stuff? I couldn't have

thought it. Pincher will help to reconcile me to the Law Lords

perhaps.

And, to turn from Tory legislators, I am vainglorious in announcing to

you that the Anti-Corn-Law League has taken up my poems on the top of

its pikes as antithetic to 'War and Monopoly.' Have I not had a sonnet

from Gutter Lane? And has not the journal called the 'League' reviewed

me into the third heaven, high up--above the pure ether of the five

points? Yes, indeed. Of course I should be a (magna) chartist for

evermore, even without the previous predilection.

And what do you and Mrs. Martin say about O'Connell? Did you read

last Saturday's 'Examiner'? Tell her that I welcomed her kind letter

heartily, and that this is an answer to both of you. My best love

to her always. May God bless you, dear Mr. Martin! Probably I have

written your patience to an end. If papa or anybody were in the room,

I should have a remembrance for you.

I remain, myself,

Affectionately yours,

BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Wednesday [December 1844].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Hardly had my letter gone to you yesterday,

when your kind present and not _et_ arrived. I thank you for my boots

with more than the warmth of the worsted, and feel all their merits to

my soul (each sole) while I thank you. A pair of boots or shoes

which 'can't be kicked off' is something highly desirable for me, in

Wilson's opinion; and this is the first thing which struck _her_.

But the 'great idea' 'à propos des bottes,' which occurred to myself,

ought to be unspeakable, like Miss Martineau's great ideas--for I do

believe it was--that I needn't have the trouble every morning, _now_,

of putting on my stockings....

My voice is thawing too, with all the rest. If the cold had lasted

I should have been dumb in a day or two more, and as it was, I was

forced to refuse to see Mrs. Jameson (who had the goodness to come

again) because I couldn't speak much above my breath. But I was

tolerably well and brave upon the whole. Oh, these murderous English

winters. The wonder is, how anybody can live through them....