Did I tell you, or Mr. Martin, that Rogers the poet, at eighty-three

or four years of age, bore the bank robbery[119] with the

light-hearted bearing of a man 'young and bold,' went out to dinner

two or three times the same week, and said witty things on his own

griefs. One of the other partners went to bed instead, and was not

likely, I heard, to 'get over it.' I felt quite glad and proud for

Rogers. He was in Germany last year, and this summer in Paris; but he

_first_ went to see Wordsworth at the Lakes.

It is a fine thing when a light burns so clear down into the socket,

isn't it? I, who am not a devout admirer of the 'Pleasures of Memory,'

do admire this perpetual youth and untired energy; it is a fine thing

to my mind. Then, there are other noble characteristics about this

Rogers. A common friend said the other day to Mr. Kenyon, 'Rogers

hates me, I know. He is always saying bitter speeches in relation to

me, and yesterday he said so and so. _But_,' he continued, 'if I were

in distress, there is one man in the world to whom I would go without

doubt and without hesitation, at once, and as to a brother, and _that_

man is _Rogers_.' Not that I would choose to be obliged to a man who

hated me; but it is an illustration of the fact that if Rogers is

bitter in his words, which we all know he is, he is always benevolent

and generous in his deeds. He makes an epigram on a man, and gives

him a thousand pounds; and the deed is the truer expression of his own

nature. An uncommon development of character, in any case.

May God bless you both!

Your most affectionate

BA.

I am going to tell you, in an antithesis, of the popularising of my

poems. I had a sonnet the other day from Gutter Lane, Cheapside, and

I heard that Count d'Orsay had written one of the stanzas of 'Crowned

and Buried' at the bottom of an engraving of Napoleon which hangs in

his room. Now I allow you to laugh at my vaingloriousness, and then

you may pin it to Mrs. Best's satisfaction in the dedication to

Dowager Majesty. By the way--no, out of the way--it is whispered that

when Queen Victoria goes to Strathfieldsea[120] (how do you spell it?)

she means to visit Miss Mitford, to which rumour Miss Mitford (being

that rare creature, a sensible woman) says: 'May God forbid.'

[Footnote 119: A great robbery from Rogers' bank on November 23,

1844, in which the thieves carried off 40,000£ worth of notes, besides

specie and securities.]

[Footnote 120: Strathfieldsaye, the Duke of Wellington's house.]

_To John Kenyan_

Wednesday morning [about December 1844].

I thank you, my dear cousin, and did so silently the day before

yesterday, when you were kind enough to bring me the review and write

the good news in pencil. I should be delighted to see you (this is to

certify) notwithstanding the frost; only my voice having suffered, and

being the ghost of itself, you might find it difficult to _hear_ me

without inconvenience. Which is for _you_ to consider, and not

for _me_. And indeed the fog, in addition to the cold, makes it

inexpedient for anyone to leave the house except upon business and

compulsion.

Oh no--we need not mind any scorn which assails Tennyson and _us_

together. There is a dishonor that does honor--and 'this is of it.' I

never heard of Barnes.[121]

Were you aware that the review you brought was in a newspaper called

the 'League,' and laudatory to the utmost extravagance--praising us

too for courage in opposing 'war and monopoly'?--the 'corn ships in

the offing' being duly named. I have heard that it is probably written

by Mr. Cobden himself, who writes for the journal in question, and is

an enthusiast in poetry. If I thought so to the point of conviction,

_do you know, I should be very much pleased_? You remember that I am a

sort of (magna) chartist--only going a little farther!

Flush was properly ashamed of himself when he came upstairs again for

his most ungrateful, inexplicable conduct towards you; and I lectured

him well; and upon asking him to 'promise never to behave ill to you

again,' he kissed my hands and wagged his tail most emphatically. It

altogether amounted to an oath, I think. The truth is that Flush's

nervous system rather than his temper was in fault, and that, in that

great cloak, he saw you as in a cloudy mystery. And then, when you

stumbled over the bell rope, he thought the world was come to an end.

He is not accustomed, you see, to the vicissitudes of life. Try to

forgive him and me--for his ingratitude seems to 'strike through' to

me; and I am not without remorse.

Ever most affectionately yours,

E.B.B.

I inclose Mr. Chorley's note which you left behind you, but which

I did not see until just now. _You_ know that I am not ashamed of

'_progress_.' On the contrary, my only hope is in it. But the question

is not _there_, nor, I think, for the public, except in cases of ripe,

established reputations, as I said before.

[Footnote 121: William Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, the first part of

whose _Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect_ appeared in 1844.]

_To Mr. Westwood_

(On returning some illustrations of Spenser by Mr. Woods)

December 11, 1844.

... With many thanks, cordial and true, I thank you for the pleasure I

have enjoyed in connection with these proofs of genius. To be honest,

it is my own personal opinion (I give it to you for as much as it

is worth--not much!) that many of the subjects of these drawings

are unfit for graphic representation. What we can bear to see in the

poet's vision, and sustained on the wings of his divine music, we

shrink from a little when brought face to face with, as drawn out

in black and white. You will understand what I mean. The horror and

terror preponderate in the drawings, and what is sublime in the

poet is apt to be extravagant in the artist--and this, not from a

deficiency of power in the latter, but from a treading on ground

forbidden except to the poet's foot. I may be wrong, perhaps--I do

not pretend to be right. I only tell you (as you ask for them) what my

impressions are.

I need not say that I wish all manner of success to your friend the

artist, and laurels of the weight of gold while of the freshness of

grass--alas! an impossible vegetable!--fabulous as the Halcyon!

_To H.S. Boyd_

Monday, December 24, 1844 [postmark].

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--I wish I had a note from you to-day--which

optative aorist I am not sure of being either grammatical or

reasonable! Perhaps you have expected to hear from _me_ with more

reason....

I fancied that you would be struck by Miss Martineau's lucid and able

style. She is a very admirable woman--and the most logical intellect

of the age, for a woman. On this account it is that the men throw

stones at her, and that many of her own sex throw dirt; but if I

begin on this subject I shall end by gnashing my teeth. A righteous

indignation fastens on me. I had a note from her the other day,

written in a noble spirit, and saying, in reference to the insults

lavished on her, that she was prepared from the first for _publicity_,

and ventured it all for the sake of what she considered the truth--she

was sustained, she said, by the recollection of Godiva.

Do you remember who Godiva was--or shall I tell you? Think of

it--Godiva of Coventry, and peeping Tom. The worst and basest is, that

in this nineteenth century there are thousands of Toms to one.

I think, however, myself, and with all my admiration for Miss

Martineau, that her statement and her reasonings on it are not free

from vagueness and apparent contradictions. She writes in a state of

enthusiasm, and some of her expressions are naturally coloured by her

mood of mind and nerve.

May this Christmas give you ease and pleasantness, in various ways, my

dearest friend! My Christmas wish for myself is to hear that you are

well. I cannot bear to think of you suffering. Are the nights better?

May God bless you. Shall you not think it a great thing if the poems

go into a second edition within the twelvemonth? I am surprised at

your not being satisfied. Consider what poetry is, and that four

months have not passed since the publication of mine; and that, where

poems have to make their way by force of _themselves_, and not of name

nor of fashion, the first three months cannot present the period

of the quickest sale. That must be for afterwards. Think of me on

Christmas Day, as of one who gratefully loves you.

ELIBET.

A passing reference in a previous letter (above, p. 217) has told of

the beginning of another friendship, which was to hold a large place

in Miss Barrett's later life; and the next letter is the first now

extant which was written to this new friend, Anna Jameson. Mrs.

Jameson had not at this time written the works on sacred art with

which her name is now chiefly associated; but she was already engaged

in her long struggle to earn her livelihood by her pen. Her first

work, 'The Diary of an Ennuyée' (1826), written before her marriage,

had attracted considerable attention. Since then she had written

her 'Characteristics of Women,' 'Essays on Shakespeare's Female

Characters,' 'Visits and Sketches,' and a number of compilations

of less importance. Quite recently she had been engaged to write

handbooks to the public and private art galleries of London, and had

so embarked on the career of art authorship in which her best work was

done.

The beginning and end of the following letter are lost. The subject of

it is the long and hostile comment which appeared in the 'Athenaeum'

for December 28 on Miss Martineau's letters on mesmerism.

_To Mrs. Jameson_

[End of December 1844.]

... For the 'Athenaeum,' I have always held it as a journal, first--in

the very first rank--both in ability and integrity; and knowing Mr.

Dilke _is_ the 'Athenaeum,' I could make no mistake in my estimation

of himself. I have personal reasons for gratitude to both him and his

journal, and I have always felt that it was honorable to me to have

them. Also, I do not at all think that because a woman is a woman,

she is on that account to be spared the ordinary risks of the arena

in literature and philosophy. I think no such thing. Logical chivalry

would be still more radically debasing to us than any other. It is not

therefore at all as a Harriet Martineau, but as a thinking and feeling

Martineau (now _don't_ laugh), that I hold her to have been hardly

used in the late controversy. And, if you don't laugh at _that_, don't

be too grave either, with the thought of your own share and position

in the matter; because, as must be obvious to everyone (yourself

included), you did everything possible to you to prevent the

catastrophe, and no man and no friend could have done better. My

brother George told me of his conversation with you at Mr. Lough's,

but _are_ you not mistaken in fancying that she blames you, that

she is cold with you? I really think you must be. Why, if she is

displeased with you she must be unjust, _and is she ever unjust_? I

ask you. _I_ should imagine not, but then, with all my insolence of

talking of her as my friend, I only admire and love her at a distance,

in her books and in her letters, and do not know her face to face, and

in living womanhood at all. She wrote to me once, and since we have

corresponded; and as in her kindness she has called me her friend, I

leap hastily at an unripe fruit, perhaps, and echo back the word. She

is your friend in a completer, or, at least, a more ordinary sense;

and indeed it is impossible for me to believe without strong evidence

that she could cease to be your friend on such grounds as are

apparent. Perhaps she does not write because she cannot contain her

wrath against Mr. Dilke (which, between ourselves, she cannot, very

well), and respects your connection and regard for him. Is not _that_

a 'peradventure' worth considering? I am sure that you have no _right_

to be uneasy in any case.

And now I do not like to send you this letter without telling you

my impression about mesmerism, lest I seem reserved and 'afraid of

committing myself,' as prudent people are. I will confess, then,

that my _impression_ is in favour of the reality of mesmerism to some

unknown extent. I particularly dislike believing it, I would rather

believe most other things in the world; but the evidence of the 'cloud

of witnesses' does thunder and lightning so in my ears and eyes,

that I believe, while my blood runs cold. I would not be practised

upon--no, not for one of Flushie's ears, and I hate the whole

theory. It is hideous to my imagination, especially what is called

phrenological mesmerism. After all, however, truth is to be accepted;

and testimony, when so various and decisive, is an ascertainer of

truth. Now do not tell Mr. Dilke, lest he excommunicate me.

But I will not pity you for the increase of occupation produced by an

increase of such comfort as your mother's and sister's presence must

give. What it will be for you to have a branch to sun yourself on,

after a long flight against the wind!

_To Mr. Chorley_

50 Wimpole Street: January 3, 1845.

Dear Mr. Chorley,--I hope it will not be transgressing very much

against the etiquette of journalism, or against the individual

delicacy which is of more consequence to both of us, if I venture

to thank you by one word for the pages which relate to me in your

excellent article in the 'New Quarterly.' It is not my habit to thank

or to remonstrate with my reviewers, and indeed I believe I may tell

you that I never wrote to thank anyone before on these grounds. I

could not thank anyone for praising me--I would not thank him for

praising me against his conscience; and if he praised me to the

measure of his conscience only, I should have little (as far as the

praise went) to thank him for. Therefore I do not thank you for the

praise in your article, but for the kind cordial spirit which pervades

both praise and blame, for the willingness in praising, and for the

gentleness in finding fault; for the encouragement without unseemly

exaggeration, and for the criticisms without critical scorn. Allow me

to thank you for these things and for the pleasure I have received by

their means. I am bold to do it, because I hear that you confess the

reviewership; and am the bolder, because I recognised your hand in

an act of somewhat similar kindness in the 'Athenaeum' at the first

appearance of the poems.

While I am writing of the 'New Quarterly,' I take the liberty of

making a remark, not of course in relation to myself--I know too well

my duty to my judges--but to your view of the Vantage ground of the

poetesses of England. It is a strong impression with me that previous

to Joanna Baillie there was no such thing in England as a poetess;

and that so far from triumphing over the rest of the world in that

particular product, we lay until then under the feet of the world.

We hear of a Marie in Brittany who sang songs worthy to be mixed with

Chaucer's for true poetic sweetness, and in Italy a Vittoria Colonna

sang her noble sonnets. But in England, where is our poetess before

Joanna Baillie--poetess in the true sense? Lady Winchilsea had an

_eye_, as Wordsworth found out; but the Duchess of Newcastle had

more poetry in her--the comparative praise proving the negative

position--than Lady Winchilsea. And when you say of the French, that

they have only epistolary women and wits, while we have our Lady Mary,

why what would Lady Mary be to us _but_ for her letters and her wit?

Not a poetess, surely! unless we accept for poetry her graceful _vers

de société_.

Do forgive me if an impulse has carried me too far. It has been long

'a fact,' to my view of the matter, that Joanna Baillie is the first

female poet in all senses in England; and I fell with the whole weight

of fact and theory against the edge of your article.

I recall myself now to my first intention of being simply, but not

silently, grateful to you; and entreating you to pardon this letter

too quickly to think it necessary-to answer it....

I remain, very truly yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

_To Mr. Chorley_

50 Wimpole Street: January 7, 1845.

Dear Mr. Chorley,--You are very good to deign to answer my

impertinences, and not to be disgusted by my defamations of 'the

grandmothers,' and (to diminish my perversity in your eyes) I am ready

to admit at once that we are generally too apt to run into premature

classification--the error of all imperfect knowledge; and into

unreasonable exclusiveness--the vice of it. We spoil the shining

surface of life by our black lines drawn through and through, as

if ominously for a game of the fox and goose. For my part, however

imperfect my practice may be, I am intimately convinced--and more and

more since my long seclusion--that to live in a house with windows on

every side, so as to catch both the morning and evening sunshine, is

the best and brightest thing we have to do--to say nothing about the

justest and wisest. Sympathies are our opportunities of good.

Moreover, I know nothing of your 'sweet mistress Anne.'[122] I never

read a verse of hers. Ignorance goes for much, you see, in all our

mal-criticisms, and my ignorance goes to this extent. I cannot write

to you of your Anglo-American poetess.

Also, in my sweeping speech about the grandmothers, I should have

stopped before such instances as the exquisite ballad of 'Auld Robin

Gray,' which is attributed to a woman, and the pathetic 'Ballow my

Babe,' which tradition calls 'Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament.' I have

certain doubts of my own, indeed, in relation to both origins, and

with regard to 'Robin Gray' in particular; but doubts are not worthy

stuff enough to be taken into an argument, and certainly, therefore,

I should have admitted those two ballads as worthy poems before the

_Joannan aera_.

For what I ventured to say otherwise, would you not consent to

join our sympathies, and receive the 'choir' (ah! but you are very

cunningly subtle in your distinctions; I am afraid I was too simple

for you) as agreeable writers of verses sometimes, leaving the word

_poet_ alone? Because, you see, what you call the 'bad dispensation'

by no means accounts for the want of the faculty of poetry, strictly

so called. England has had many learned women, not merely readers

but writers of the learned languages, in Elizabeth's time and

afterwards--women of deeper acquirements than are common now in the

greater diffusion of letters; and yet where were the poetesses? The

divine breath which seemed to come and go, and, ere it went,

filled the land with that crowd of true poets whom we call the old

dramatists--why did it never pass, even in the lyrical form, over the

lips of a woman? How strange! And can we deny that it was so? I look

everywhere for grandmothers and see none. It is not in the filial

spirit I am deficient, I do assure you--witness my reverent love of

the grandfathers!

Seriously, I do not presume to enter into argument with you, and this

in relation to a critical paper which I admire in so many ways and

am grateful for in some; but is not the poet a different man from the

cleverest versifier, and is it not well for the world to be taught

the difference? The divineness of poetry is far more to me than either

pride of sex or personal pride, and, though willing to acknowledge the

lowest breath of the inspiration, I cannot the 'powder and patch.' As

powder and patch I may, but not as poetry. And though I in turn may

suffer for this myself--though I too (_anch' io_) may be turned out of

'Arcadia,' and told that I am not a poet, still, I should be content,

I hope, that the divineness of poetry be proved in my humanness,

rather than lowered to my uses.

But you shall not think me exclusive. Of poor L.E.L., for instance,

I could write with _more_ praiseful appreciation than you can. It

appears to me that she had the gift--though in certain respects she

dishonored the art--and her latter lyrics are, many of them, of great

beauty and melody, such as, having once touched the ear of a reader,

live on in it. I observe in your 'Life of Mrs. Hemans' (shall I tell

you how often I have read those volumes?) she (Mrs. H.) never appears,

in any given letter or recorded opinion, to esteem her contemporary.

The antagonism lay, probably, in the higher parts of Mrs. Hemans's

character and mind, and we are not to wonder at it.

It is very pleasant to me to have your approbation of the sonnets on

George Sand, on the points of feeling and lightness, on which all my

readers have not absolved me equally, I have reason to know. I am more

a latitudinarian in literature than it is generally thought expedient

for women to be; and I have that admiration for _genius_, which dear

Mr. Kenyon calls my 'immoral sympathy with power;' and if Madame

Dudevant[123] is not the first female genius of any country or

age, I really do not know who is. And then she has certain

noblenesses--granting all the evil and 'perilous stuff'--noblenesses

and royalnesses which make me loyal. Do pardon me for intruding all

this on you, though you cannot justify me--_you_, who are occupied

beyond measure, and _I_, who know it! I have been under the delusion,

too, during this writing, of having something like a friend's claim

to write and be troublesome. I have lived so near your friends that I

keep the odour of them! A mere delusion, alas! my only personal

right in respect to you being one that I am not likely to forget or

waive--the right of being grateful to you.

But so, and looking again at the last words of your letter, I see that

you 'wish,' in the kindest of words, 'to do something more for me.'

I hope some day to take this 'something more' of your kindness out

in the pleasure of personal intercourse; and if, in the meantime, you

should consent to flatter my delusion by letting me hear from you now

and then, if ever you have a moment to waste and inclination to waste

it, why I, on my side, shall always be ready to thank you for the

'something more' of kindness, as bound in the duty of gratitude. In

any case I remain

Truly and faithfully yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

[Footnote 122: Probably Miss Anne Seward, a minor poetess who enjoyed

considerable popularity at the end of the eighteenth century. Her

elegies on Captain Cook and Major André went through several editions,

as did her _Louisa_, a poetical novel, a class of composition in

which she was the predecessor of Mrs. Browning herself. Her collected

poetical works were edited after her death by Sir Walter Scott

(1810).]

[Footnote 123: The real name of George Sand.]

_To Mr. Chorley_

[_The beginning of this letter is lost_]

[1845]

... to the awful consideration of the possibility of my reading

a novel or caring for the story of it (_proh pudor!_), that I am

probably, not to say certainly, the most complete and unscrupulous

romance reader within your knowledge. Never was a child who cared more

for 'a story' than I do; never even did I myself, _as_ a child, care

more for it than I do. My love of fiction began with my breath, and

will end with it; and goes on increasing; and the heights and depths

of the consumption which it has induced you may guess at perhaps,

but it is a sublime idea from its vastness, and will gain on you but

slowly. On my tombstone may be written '_Ci-gît_ the greatest novel

reader in the world,' and nobody will forbid the inscription; and I

approve of Gray's notion of paradise more than of his lyrics, when he

suggests the reading of romances ever new, [Greek: _eis tous aiônas_.]

Are you shocked at me? Perhaps so. And you see I make no excuses, as

an invalid might. Invalid or not, I should have a romance in a drawer,

if not behind a pillow, and I might as well be true and say so.

There is the love of literature, which is one thing, and the love

of fiction, which is another. And then, I am not fastidious, as Mrs.

Hemans was, in her high purity, and therefore the two loves have a

race-course clear.

This is a long preface to coming to speak of the 'Improvisatore.'[124]

I had sent for it already to the library, and shall dun them for it

twice as much for the sake of what you say. Only I hope I may care for

the story. I shall try.

And for the _rococo_, I have more feeling for it, in a sense, than I

once had, for, some two years ago, I passed through a long dynasty

of French memoirs, which made me feel quite differently about the

littlenesses of greatnesses. I measured them all from the heights

of the 'tabouret,'[125] and was a good Duchess, in the 'non-natural'

meaning, for the moment. Those memoirs are charming of their kind, and

if life were cut in filagree paper would be profitable reading to the

soul. Do you not think so? And you mean besides, probably, that you

care for _beauty in detail_, which we all should do if our senses were

better educated.

So the confession is not a dreadful one, after all, and mine may

involve more evil, and would to ninety-nine out of a hundred 'sensible

and cultivated people.' Think what Mrs. Ellis would say to the 'Women

of England' about me in her fifteenth edition, if she knew!

And do _you_ know that dear Miss Mitford spent this day week with me,

notwithstanding the rain?

Very truly yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

I have forgotten what I particularly wished to say--viz. that I never

thought of _expecting_ to hear from you. I understand that when you

write it is pure grace, and never to be expected. You have too much to

do, I understand perfectly.

The east wind seems to be blowing all my letters about to-day;

the _t's_ and _e's_ wave like willows. Now if crooked _e's_ mean a

'greenshade' (not taken rurally), what awful significance can have the

whole crooked alphabet?

[Footnote 124: By Hans Andersen; an English translation by Mary Howitt

was published in 1845.]

[Footnote 125: Duchesses in the French court had the privilege of

seating themselves on a _tabouret_ or stool while the King took his

meals; hence the _droit du tabouret_ comes to mean the rank of a

duchess.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Saturday, January 1844 [should be 1845].[126]

I must tell you, my dearest Mrs. Martin, Mr. Kenyon has read to me an

extract from a private letter addressed by H. Martineau to Moxon the

publisher, to the effect that Lord Morpeth was down on his knees

in the middle of the room a few nights ago, in the presence of the

somnambule J., and conversing with her in Greek and Latin, that the

four Miss Liddels were also present, and that they five talked to

her during one _séance_ in five foreign languages, viz. Latin, Greek,

French, Italian, and German. When the mesmeriser touches the organ of

_imitation_ on J.'s head, while the strange tongue is in the course of

being addressed to her, she translates into English word for word

what is said; but when the organ of _language_ is touched, she simply

answers in English what is said.

My 'few words of comment' upon this are, that I feel to be more and

more standing on my head--which does not mean, you will be pleased to

observe, that I understand.

Well, and how are you both going on? My voice is quite returned; and

papa continues, I am sorry to say, to have a bad cold and cough. He

means to stay in the house to-day and try what prudence will do.

We have heard from Henry, at Alexandria still, but a few days before

sailing, and he and Stormie are bringing home, as a companion to

Flushie, a beautiful little gazelle. What do you think of it? I would

rather have it than the 'babby,' though the flourish of trumpets on

the part of the possessors seems quite in favor of the latter.

And I had a letter from Browning the poet last night, which threw me

into ecstasies--Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' and king of the

mystics.

[_The rest of this letter is missing_.]

[Footnote 126: The mention of her brothers being at Alexandria is

sufficient to show that 1845 must be the true date.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Saturday, January 1845.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I believe our last letters crossed, and we

might draw lots for the turn of receiving one, so that you are to take

it for supererogatory virtue in me altogether if I begin to write to

you as 'at these presents.' But I want to know how you both are, and

if your last account may continue to be considered the true one. You

have been poising yourself on the equal balance of letters, as weak

consciences are apt to do, but I write that you may write, and also,

a little, that I may thank you for the kindness of your last letter,

which was so very kind.

No, indeed, dearest Mrs. Martin. If I do not say oftener that I have

a strong and grateful trust in your affection for me, and therefore

in your interest in all that concerns me, it is not that it is less

strong and grateful. What I said or sang of Miss Martineau's letter

was no consequence of a distrust of _you_, but of a feeling within

myself that for me to show about such a letter was scarcely becoming,

and, in the matter of modesty, nowise discreet. I suppose I was

writing excuses to myself for showing it to you. I cannot otherwise

account for the saying and singing. And, for the rest, nobody can say

or sing that I am not frank enough to you--to the extent of telling

all manner of nonsense about myself which can only be supposed to be

interesting on the ground of your being presupposed to care a little

for the person concerned. Now am I not frank enough? And by the way, I

send you 'The Seraphim'[127] at last, by this day's railroad.

Thursday.

To prove to you that I had not forgotten you before your letter came,

here is the fragment of an unfinished one which I send you, to begin

with--an imperfect fossil letter, which no comparative anatomy will

bring much sense out of--except the plain fact _that you were not

forgotten_....

From Alexandria we heard yesterday that they sailed from thence on the

first of January, and the home passage may be long.

The _changes_ in Mary Minto on account of mesmerism were merely

imaginary as far as I can understand. Nobody here observed any change

in her. Oh no. These things will be fancied sometimes. That she is an

enthusiastic girl, and that the subject took strong hold upon her, is

true enough, and not the least in the world--according to my mind--to

be wondered at. By the way, I had a letter and the present of a work

on mesmerism--Mr. Newnham's--from his daughter, who sent it to me the

other day, in the kindest way, 'out of gratitude for my poetry,' as

she says, and from a desire that it might do me physical good in the

matter of health. I do not at all know her. I wrote to thank her, of

course, for the kindness and sympathy which, as she expressed them,

quite touched me; and to explain how I did not stand in reach just

now of the temptations of mesmerism. I might have said that I shrank

nearly as much from these 'temptations' as from Lord Bacon's stew of

infant children for the purposes of witchcraft.

Well, then, I am getting deeper and deeper into correspondence with

Robert Browning, poet and mystic, and we are growing to be the truest

of friends. If I live a little longer shut up in this room, I shall

certainly know everybody in the world. Mrs. Jameson came again

yesterday, and was very agreeable, but tried vainly to convince me

that the 'Vestiges of Creation,' which I take to be one of the most

melancholy books in the world, is the most comforting, and that Lady

Byron was an angel of a wife. I persisted (in relation to the former

clause) in a 'determinate counsel' not to be a fully developed monkey

if I could help it, but when Mrs. J. assured me that she knew all

the circumstances of the separation, though she could not betray a

confidence, and entreated me 'to keep my mind open' on a subject which

would one day be set in the light, I stroked down my feathers as well

as I could, and listened to reason. You know--or perhaps you do

_not_ know--that there are two women whom I have hated all my life

long--_Lady Byron and Marie Louise_. To prove how false the public

effigy of the former is, however, Mrs. Jameson told me that she knew

_nothing of mathematics, nothing of science_, and that the element

preponderating in her mind is the _poetical_ element--that she cares

much for _my_ poetry! How deep in the knowledge of the depths of

vanity must Mrs. J. be, to tell me _that_--now mustn't she? But there

was--yes, and is--a strong adverse feeling to work upon, and it is not

worked away.

Then, I have seen a copy of a note of Lord Morpeth to H. Martineau, to

the effect that he considered the mesmeric phenomena witnessed by him

(inclusive, remember, of the _languages_) to be 'equally beautiful,

wonderful, and _undeniable_' but he is prudent enough to desire that

no use should be made of this letter ... And now no more for to-day.

With love to Mr. Martin, ever believe me

Your affectionate

BA.

[Footnote 127: A copy of the 1838 volume for which Mrs. Martin had

asked.]

_To John Kenyan_

Saturday, February 8, 1845.

I return to you, dearest Mr. Kenyon, the two numbers of Jerold

Douglas's[128] magazine, and I wish 'by that same sign' I could invoke

your presence and advice on a letter I received this morning. You

never would guess what it is, and you will wonder when I tell you that

it offers a request from the _Leeds Ladies' Committee_, authorised and

backed by the London _General Council of the League_, to your cousin

Ba, that she would write them a poem for the Corn Law Bazaar to be

holden at Covent Garden next May. Now my heart is with the cause, and

my vanity besides, perhaps, for I do not deny that I am pleased with

the request so made, and if left to myself I should be likely at once

to say 'yes,' and write an agricultural-evil poem to complete the

factory-evil poem into a national-evil circle. And I do not myself

see how it would be implicating my name with a political party to the

extent of wearing a badge. The League is not a party, but 'the meeting

of the waters' of several parties, and I am trying to persuade papa's

Whiggery that I may make a poem which will be a fair exponent of the

actual grievance, leaving the remedy free for the hands of fixed-duty

men like him, or free-trade women like myself. As to wearing the badge

of a party, either in politics or religion, I may say that never in my

life was I so far from coveting such a thing. And then poetry breathes

in another outer air. And then there is not an existent set of

any-kind-of-politics I could agree with if I tried--_I_, who am a

sort of fossil republican! You shall see the letters when you

come. Remember what the 'League' newspaper said of the 'Cry of the

Children.'

Ever affectionately yours,

E.B.B.

[Footnote 128: Evidently a slip of the pen for Douglas Jerrold, whose

'Shilling Magazine' began to come out in 1845.]

_To Miss Commeline_

50 Wimpole Street: [February-March 1845].

My dear Miss Commeline,--I do hope that you will allow me to appear

to remember you as I never have ceased to do in reality, and at a time

when sympathy of friends is generally acceptable, to offer you mine

as if I had some right of friendship to do so. And I am encouraged the

more to attempt this because I never shall forget that in the hour of

the bitterest agony of my life your brother wrote me a letter which,

although I did not read it, I was too ill and distracted, I was yet

shown the outside of some months afterwards and enabled to appreciate

the sympathy fully. Such a kindness could not fail to keep alive in

me (if the need of keeping alive _were_!) the memory of the various

kindnesses received by me and mine from all your family, nor fail to

excite me to desire to impress upon you my remembrance of _you_ and

my regard, and the interest with which I hear of your joys and sorrows

whenever they are large enough to be seen from such a distance. Try

to believe this of me, dear Miss Commeline, yourself, and let your

sisters and your brother believe it also. If sorrow in its reaction

makes us think of our friends, let my name come among the list of

yours to you, and with it let the thought come that I am not the

coldest and least sincere. May God bless and comfort you, I say, with

a full heart, knowing what afflictions like yours are and must be,

but confident besides that 'we know not what we do' in weeping for the

dearest. In our sorrow we see the rough side of the stuff; in our joys

the smooth; and who shall say that when the taffeta is turned the most

_silk_ may not be in the sorrows? It is true, however, that sorrows

are heavy, and that sometimes the conditions of life (which sorrows

are) seem hard to us and overcoming, and I believe that much suffering

is necessary before we come to learn that the world is a good place to

live in and a good place to die in for even the most affectionate and

sensitive.

How glad I should be to hear from you some day, when it is not

burdensome for you to write at length and fully concerning all of

you--of your sister Maria, and of Laura, and of your brother, and

of all your occupations and plans, and whether it enters into your

dreams, not to say plans, ever to come to London, or to follow the

track of your many neighbours across the seas, perhaps....

For ourselves we have the happiness of seeing our dear papa so well,

that I am almost justified in fancying happily that you would not

think him altered. He has perpetual youth like the gods, and I may

make affidavit to your brother nevertheless that we never boiled him

up to it. Also his spirits are good and his 'step on the stair' so

light as to comfort me for not being able to run up and down them

myself. I am essentially better in health, but remain weak and

shattered and at the mercy of a breath of air through a crevice; and

thus the unusually severe winter has left me somewhat lower than usual

without surprising anybody. Henrietta and Arabel are quite well and at

home; George on circuit, always obliged by your proffered hospitality;

and Charles John and Henry returning from a voyage to Alexandria in

papa's own vessel, the 'Statira.' I set you an imperfect example of

egotism, and hope that you will double my _I's_ and _we's_, and kindly

trust to me for being interested in yours....

Yours affectionately,

E.B. BARRETT.

_To H.S. Boyd_

Saturday, March 3, 1845.

My dearest Friend,--I am aware that I should have written to you

before, but the cold weather is apt to disable me and to make me feel

idle when it does not do so quite. Now I am going to write about your

remarks on the 'Dublin Review.'

Certainly I agree with you that there can be no necessity for

explaining anything about the tutorship if you do not kick against the

pricks of the insinuation yourself, and especially as I consider that

you _were_ in a sense my 'tutor,' inasmuch as I may say, both that

nobody ever taught me so much Greek as you, and also that without you

I should have probably lived and died without any knowledge of the

Greek Fathers. The Greek classics I should have studied by love

and instinct; but the Fathers would probably have remained in their

sepulchres, as far as my reading them was concerned. Therefore, very

gratefully do I turn to you as my 'tutor' in the best sense, and the

more persons call you so, the better it is for the pleasures of my

gratitude. The review amused me by hitting on the right meaning there,

and besides by its percipiency about your remembering me during your

travels in the East, and sending me home the Cyprus wine. Some of

these reviewers have a wonderful gift at inferences. The 'Metropolitan

Magazine' for March (which is to be sent to you when papa has read

it) contains a flaming article in my favour, calling me 'the friend of

Wordsworth,' and, moreover, a very little lower than the angels. You

shall see it soon, and it is only just out, of course, being the March

number. The praise is beyond thanking for, and then I do not know whom

to thank--I cannot at all guess at the writer.

I have had a kind note from Lord Teynham, whose oblivion I had ceased

to doubt, it seemed so _proved_ to me that he had forgotten me. But

he writes kindly, and it gave me pleasure to have some sign of

recollection, if not of regard, from one whom I consider with

unalterable and grateful respect, and shall always, although I am

aware that he denies all sympathy to my works and ways in literature

and the world. In fact, and to set my poetry aside, he has joined that

'strait sect' of the Plymouth Brethren, and, of course, has straitened

his views since we met, and I, by the reaction of solitude and

suffering, have broken many bands which held me at that time. He was

always straiter than I, and now the difference is immense. For I think

the world wider than I once thought it, and I see God's love broader

than I once saw it. To the 'Touch not, taste not, handle not' of the

strict religionists, I feel inclined to cry, 'Touch, taste, handle,

_all things are pure_.' But I am writing this for you and not for

him, and you probably will agree with me, if you think as you used to

think, at least.

But I do not agree with _you_ on the League question, nor on the woman

question connected with it, only we will not quarrel to-day, and I

have written enough already without an argument at the end.

Can you guess what I have been doing lately? Washing out my

conscience, effacing the blot on my escutcheon, performing an

expiation, translating over again from the Greek the 'Prometheus' of

Aeschylus.

Yes, my very dear friend, I could not bear to let that frigid, rigid

exercise, called a version and called mine, cold as Caucasus, and

flat as the neighbouring plain, stand as my work. A palinodia, a

recantation was necessary to me, and I have achieved it. Do you blame

me or not? Perhaps I may print it in a magazine, but this is not

decided. How delighted I am to think of your being well. It makes me

very happy.

Your ever affectionate and grateful

ELIBET.

_To Mr. Westwood_

March 4, 1845.

I reproach myself, dear Mr. W., for my silence, and began to do so

before your kind note reminded me of its unkindness. I had indeed

my pen in my hand three days ago to write to you, but a cross fate

plucked at my sleeve for the ninety-ninth time, and left me guilty.

And you do not write to reproach me! You only avenge yourself softly

by keeping back all news of your health, and by not saying a word

of the effect on you of the winter which has done its spiriting

so ungently. Which brings me down to myself. For somebody has been

dreaming of me, and dreams, you know, must go by contraries. And

how could it be otherwise? Although I am on the whole essentially

better--on the whole!--yet the peculiar severity of the winter has

acted on me, and the truth is that for the last month, precisely

the last month, I have been feeling (off and on, as people say)

very uncomfortable. Not that I am essentially worse, but essentially

better, on the contrary, only that the feeling of discomfort and

trouble at the heart (physically) _will_ come with the fall of the

thermometer, and the voice will go!...

And then I have another question to enunciate--will the oracle answer?

Do you know _who wrote the article in the 'Metropolitan'_? Beseech

you, answer me. I have a suspicion, true, that the critics have been

supernaturally kind to me, but the kindness of this 'Metropolitan'

critic so passes the ordinary limit of kindness, metropolitan or

critical, that I cannot but look among my personal friends for the

writer of the article. Coming to personal friends, I reject one on one

ground and one on another--for one the graciousness is too graceful,

and for another the grace almost too gracious. I am puzzled and dizzy

with doubt; and--is it you? Answer me, will you? If so, I should owe

so much gratitude to you. Suffer me to pay it!--permit the pleasure to

me of paying it!--for I know too much of the pleasures of gratitude to

be willing to lose one of them.

_To John Kenyan_

March 6, [1845].

Thank you, dearest Mr. Kenyon--they are very fine. The poetry is in

_them_, rather than in Blair. And now I send them back, and Cunningham

and Jerrold, with thanks on thanks; and if you will be kind enough not

to insist on my reading the letters to Travis[129] within the 'hour,'

they shall wait for the 'Responsibility,' and the two go to you

together.

And as to the tiring, it has not been much, and the happy day was well

worth being tired _for_. It is better to be tired with pleasure than

with frost; and if I have the last fatigue too, why it is March,

and it is the hour of my martyrdom always. But I am not ill--only

uncomfortable.

Ah, the 'relenting'! it is rather a bad sign, I am afraid;

notwithstanding the subtilty of your consolations; but I stroke down

my philosophy, to make it shine, like a cat's back in the dark.

The argument from more deserving poets who prosper less is not very

comforting, is it? I trow not.

But as to the review, be sure--be very sure that it is not Mr.

Browning's. How you could _think_ even of Mr. Browning, surprises me.

Now, as for me, I know as well _as he does himself_ that he has had

nothing to do with it.

I should rather suspect Mr. Westwood, the author of some fugitive

poems, who writes to me sometimes; and the suspicion having occurred

to me, I have written to put the question directly. You shall hear, if

I hear in reply.

May God bless you always. I have heard from dear Miss Mitford.

Ever affectionately yours,

E.B.B.

[Footnote 129: By Porson, on the authenticity of I John v. 7.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

March 29, 1845 [postmark].

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--As Arabel has written out for you the

glorification of 'Peter of York,'[130] I shall use an edge of the same

paper to 'fall on your sense' with my gratitude about the Cyprus wine.

Indeed, I could almost upbraid you for sending me another bottle. It

is most supererogatory kindness in you to think of such a thing. And

I accept it, nevertheless, with thanks instead of remonstrances, and

promise you to drink your health in and the spring in together, and

the east wind out, if you do not object to it. I have been better for

several days, but my heart is not yet very orderly--not being able to

recover the veins, I suppose, all in a moment.

For the rest, you always mean what is right and affectionate, and I am

not apt to mistake your meanings in this respect. Be indulgent to me

as far as you can, when it appears to you that I sink far below your

religious standard, as I am sure I must do oftener than you remind

me. Also, it certainly does appear, to my mind, that we are not, as

Christians, called to the exclusive expression of Christian doctrine,

either in poetry or prose. All truth and all beauty and all music

belong to God--He is in all things; and in speaking of all, we speak

of Him. In poetry, which includes all things, 'the diapason closeth

full in God.' I would not lose a note of the lyre, and whatever He has

included in His creation I take to be holy subject enough for _me_.

That I am blamed for this view by many, I know, but I cannot see it

otherwise, and when you pay your visit to 'Peter of York' and me, and

are able to talk everything over, we shall agree tolerably well, I do

not doubt.

Ah, what a dream! What a thought! Too good even to come true!

I did not think that you would much like the 'Duchess May;' but among

the _profanum vulgus_ you cannot think how successful it has been.

There was an account in one of the fugitive reviews of a lady falling

into hysterics on the perusal of it, although _that_ was nothing to

the gush of tears of which there is a tradition, down the Plutonian

cheeks of a lawyer unknown, over 'Bertha in the Lane.' But these

things should not make anybody vain. It is the _story_ that has power

with people, just what _you_ do not care for!

About the reviews you ask a difficult question; but I suppose the

best, as reviews, are the 'Dublin Review,' 'Blackwood,' the 'New

Quarterly,' and the last 'American,' I forget the title at this

moment, the _Whig_ 'American,' _not_ the Democratic. The most

favorable to me are certainly the American unremembered, and the late

'Metropolitan,' which last was written, I hear, by Mr. Charles Grant,

a voluminous writer, but no poet. I consider myself singularly

happy in my reviews, and to have full reason for gratitude to the

profession.

I forgot to say that what the Dublin reviewer did me the honor of

considering an Irishism was the expression 'Do you mind' in 'Cyprus

Wine.' But he was wrong, because it occurs frequently among our elder

English writers, and is as British as London porter.

Now see how you throw me into figurative liquids, by your last Cyprus.

It is the true celestial, this last. But Arabel pleased me most by

bringing back so good an account of _you_.

Your ever affectionate and grateful

ELIBET.

[Footnote 130: A monster bell for York Minster, then being exhibited

at the Baker Street Bazaar. Mr. Boyd was an enthusiast on bells and

bell ringing.]

_To John Kenyan_

Friday [about January-March 1845].

Dearest Mr. Kenyon,--If your good nature is still not at ease, through

doubting about how to make Lizzy happy in a book, you will like

to hear perhaps that I have thought of a certain 'Family Robinson

Crusoe,' translated from the _German_, I think, _not_ a Robinson

_purified_, mind, but a Robinson multiplied and compounded.[131]

Children like reading it, I believe. And then there is a 'Masterman

Ready,' or some name like it, by Captain Marryat, also popular with

young readers. Or 'Seaward's Narrative,' by Miss Porter, would delight

her, as it did _me_, not so many years ago.

I mention these books, but know nothing of their price; and only

because you asked me, I do mention them. The fact is that she is not

hard to please as to literature, and will be delighted with anything.

To-day Mr. Poe sent me a volume containing his poems and tales

collected, so now I _must_ write and thank him for his dedication.

What is to be said, I wonder, when a man calls you the 'noblest of

your sex'? 'Sir, you are the most discerning of yours.' Were you

thanked for the garden ticket yesterday? No, everybody was ungrateful,

down to Flush, who drinks day by day out of his new purple cup, and

had it properly explained how _you_ gave it to him (_I_ explained

_that_), and yet never came upstairs to express to you his sense of

obligation.

Affectionately yours always,

E.B.B.

[Footnote 131: No doubt _The Swiss Family Robinson_.]

_To John Kenyan_

Saturday [beginning of April 1845].

My dearest Cousin,--After all _I_/ said to _you_, said the other day,

about Apuleius, and about what couldn't, shouldn't, and mustn't be

done in the matter, I ended by trying the unlawful art of translating

this prose into verse, and, one after another, have done all the

subjects of the Poniatowsky gems Miss Thompson sent the list of,

except _two_, which I am doing and shall finish anon.[132] In the

meantime it comes into my head that it is just as well for you to look

over my doings, and judge whether anything in them is to the purpose,

or at all likely to be acceptable. Especially I am anxious to impress

on you that, if I could think for a moment _you would hesitate about

rejecting the whole in a body_, from any consideration for _me_, I

should not merely be vexed but pained. Am I not your own cousin, to be

ordered about as you please? And so take notice that I will not _bear_

the remotest approach to ceremony in the matter. What is wrong? what

is right? what is too much? those are the only considerations.

Apuleius is _florid_, which favored the poetical design on his

sentences. Indeed he is more florid than I have always liked to make

my verses. It is not, of course, an absolute translation, but as a

running commentary on the text it is sufficiently faithful.

But probably (I say to myself) you do not want so many illustrations,

and all too from one hand?

The two I do not send are 'Psyche contemplating Cupid asleep,' and

'Psyche and the Eagle.'

And I wait to hear how Polyphemus is to _look_--and also Adonis.

The Magazine goes to you with many thanks. The sonnet is full of force

and expression, and I like it as well as ever I did--better even!

Oh--such happy news to-day! The 'Statira' is at Plymouth, and my

brothers quite well, notwithstanding their hundred days on the sea!

_It makes me happy_.

Yours most affectionately,

BA.

You shall have your 'Radical' almost immediately. I am ashamed. _In

such haste_.

[Footnote 132: These versions were not published in Mrs. Browning's

lifetime, but were included in the posthumous _Last Poems_ (1862).

They now appear in the _Poetical Works_, v. 72-83.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

April 3, 1845.

My very dear Friend,--I have been intending every day to write to tell

you that the Cyprus wine is as nectareous as possible, so fit for the

gods, in fact, that I have been forced to leave it off as unfit for

_me_; it made me so feverish. But I keep it until the sun shall have

made me a little less mortal; and in the meantime recognise thankfully

both its high qualities and _your_ kind ones. How delightful it is to

have this sense of a summer at hand. _Shall_ I see you this summer, I

wonder. That is a question among my dreams.

By the last American packet I had two letters, one from a poet of

Massachusetts, and another from a poetess: the _he_, Mr. Lowell, and

the _she_, Mrs. Sigourney. She says that the sound of my poetry is

stirring the 'deep green forests of the New World;' which sounds

pleasantly, does it not? And I understand from Mr. Moxon that a new

edition will be called for before very long, only not immediately....

Your affectionate and grateful friend,

ELIBET.

Arabel and Mr. Hunter talk of paying you a visit some day.

_To Mrs. Martin_

April 3, 1845.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I wrote to you not many days ago, but I must

tell you that our voyagers are safe in Sandgate break in 'an ugly

hulk' (as poor Stormie says despondingly), suffering three or four

days of quarantine agony, and that we expect to see them on Monday or

Tuesday in the full bloom of their ill humour. I am happy to think,

according to the present symptoms, that the mania for sea voyages

is considerably abated. 'Nothing could be more miserable,' exclaims

Storm; 'the only comfort of the whole four months is the safety of

the beans, tell papa'--and the safety of the beans is rather a

Pythagoraean[133] equivalent for four months' vexation, though not

a bean of them all should have lost in freshness and value! He could

scarcely write, he said, for the chilblains on his hands, and was in

utter destitution of shirts and sheets. Oh! I have very good hopes

that for the future Wimpole Street may be found endurable.

Well, and you are at once angry and satisfied, I suppose, about

Maynooth; just as I am! satisfied with the justice as far as it goes,

and angry and disgusted at the hideous shrieks of intolerance and

bigotry which run through the country. The dissenters have very nearly

disgusted me, what with the Education clamour, and the Presbyterian

chapel cry, and now this Maynooth cry; and certainly it is wonderful

how people can see rights as rights in their own hands, and as wrongs

in the hands of their opposite neighbours. Moreover it seems to me

atrocious that we who insist on seven millions of Catholics supporting

a church they call heretical, should _dare_ to talk of our scruples

(conscientious scruples forsooth!) about assisting with a poor

pittance of very insufficient charity their 'damnable idolatry.' Why,

every cry of complaint we utter is an argument against the wrong we

have been committing for years and years, and must be so interpreted

by every honest and disinterested thinker in the world. Of course I

should prefer the Irish establishment coming down, to any endowment

at all; I should prefer a trial of the voluntary system throughout

Ireland; but as it is adjudged on all hands impossible to attempt this

in the actual state of parties and countries, why this Maynooth grant

and subsequent endowment of the Catholic Church in Ireland seem the

simple alternative, obviously and on the first principles of justice.

Macaulay was very great, was he not? He appeared to me _conclusive_ in

logic and sentiment. The sensation everywhere is extraordinary, I am

sorry really to say!

Wordsworth is in London, having been commanded up to the Queen's ball.

He went in Rogers's court dress, or did I tell you so the other day?

And I hear that the fair Majesty of England was quite 'fluttered' at

seeing him. 'She had not a word to say,' said Mrs. Jameson, who came

to see me the other day and complained of the omission as 'unqueenly;'

but I disagreed with her and thought the being '_fluttered_' far the

highest compliment. But she told me that a short time ago the Queen

confessed she never had read Wordsworth, on which a maid of honour

observed, 'That is a pity, he would do your Majesty a great deal of

good.' Mrs. Jameson declared that Miss Murray, a maid of honour, very

deeply attached to the Queen, assured her (Mrs. J.) of the answer

being quite as abrupt as _that_; as direct, and to the purpose; and

no offence intended or received. I like Mrs. Jameson better the more

I see her, and with grateful reason, she is so kind. Now do write

directly, and let me hear of you [in d]etail. And tell Mr. Martin to

make a point of coming home to us, with no grievances but political

ones. The Bazaar is to be something sublime in its degree, and I shall

have a sackcloth feeling all next week. All the rail carriages will

be wound up to radiate into it, I hear, and the whole country is to be

shot into the heart of London.

May God bless you.

Your ever affectionate

BA.

I hear that Guizot suffers intensely, and that there are fears lest he

may sink. Not that the complaint is mortal.

[Footnote 133: Referring to the Pythagorean doctrine of the sanctity

of beans.]

_To Mr. Westwood_

Wimpole Street: April 9, 1845.

Poor Hood! Ah! I had feared that the scene was closing on him. And I

am glad that a little of the poor gratitude of the world is laid down

at his door just now to muffle to his dying ear the harsher sounds

of life. I forgive much to Sir Robert for the sake of that

letter--though, after all, the minister is not high-hearted, or made

of heroic stuff.[134]

I am delighted that you should appreciate Mr. Browning's high

power--very high, according to my view--very high, and various. Yes,

'Paracelsus' you _should_ have. 'Sordello' has many fine things in

it, but, having been thrown down by many hands as unintelligible, and

retained in mine as certainly of the Sphinxine literature, with all

its power, I hesitate to be imperious to you in my recommendations of

it. Still, the book _is_ worth being _studied_--study is necessary

to it, as, indeed, though in a less degree, to all the works of this

poet; study is peculiarly necessary to it. He is a true poet, and a

poet, I believe, of a large '_future in-rus, about to be_.' He is only

growing to the height he will attain.

_To Mr. Westwood_

April 1845.

The sin of Sphinxine literature I admit. Have I not struggled hard to

renounce it? Do I not, day by day? Do you know that I have been

told that _I_ have written things harder to interpret than Browning

himself?--only I cannot, cannot believe it--he is so very hard. Tell

me honestly (and although I attributed the excessive good nature of

the 'Metropolitan' criticism to you, I _know_ that you can speak the

truth _truly_!) if anything like the Sphinxineness of Browning, you

discover in me; take me as far back as 'The Seraphim' volume and

answer! As for Browning, the fault is certainly great, and the

disadvantage scarcely calculable, it is so great. He cuts his language

into bits, and one has to join them together, as young children do

their dissected maps, in order to make any meaning at all, and to

study hard before one can do it. Not that I grudge the study or the

time. The depth and power of the significance (when it is apprehended)

glorifies the puzzle. With you and me it is so; but with the majority

of readers, even of readers of poetry, it is not and cannot be so.

The consequence is, that he is not read except in a peculiar circle

very strait and narrow. He will not die, because the principle of

life is in him, but he will not live the warm summer life which is

permitted to many of very inferior faculty, because he does not come

out into the sun.

Faithfully your friend,

E.B. BARRETT.

[Footnote 134: Hood died on May 3, 1845; while on his deathbed he

received from Sir Robert Peel the notification that he had conferred

on him a pension of 100£ a year, with remainder to his wife.]

The following letter relates to the controversy raging round Miss

Martineau and her mesmerism. Miss Barrett had evidently referred to it

in a letter to Mr. Chorley, which has not been preserved.

_To Mr. Chorley_

50 Wimpole Street: April 28, 1845.

Dear Mr. Chorley,--I felt quite sure that you would take my postscript

for a womanish thing, and a little doubtful whether you would not

take the whole allusion (in or out of a postscript) for an impertinent

thing; but the impulse to speak was stronger than the fear of

speaking; and from the peculiarities of my position, I have come to

write by impulses just as other people talk by them. Still, if I had

known that the subject was so painful to you, I certainly would not

have touched on it, strong as my feeling has been about it, and full

and undeniable as is my sympathy with our noble-minded friend, both as

a woman and a thinker. Not that I consider (of course I cannot) that

she has made out anything like a '_fact_' in the Tynemouth story--not

that I think the evidence offered in any sort sufficient; take it as

it was in the beginning and unimpugned--not that I have been otherwise

than of opinion throughout that she was precipitate and indiscreet,

however generously so, in her mode and time of advocating the mesmeric

question; but that she is at liberty as a thinking being (in my mind)

to hold an opinion, the grounds of which she cannot yet justify to

the world. Do you not think she may be? Have you not opinions yourself

beyond what you can prove to others? Have we not all? And because some

of the links of the outer chain of a logical argument fail, or seem to

fail, are we therefore to have our 'honours' questioned, because we

do not yield what is suspended to an inner uninjured chain of at once

subtler and stronger formation? For what I venture to object to in the

argument of the 'Athenaeum' is the making a _moral obligation_ of an

_intellectual act_, which is the first step and gesture (is it not?)

in all persecution for opinion; and the involving of the 'honour' of

an opponent in the motion of recantation she is invited to. This I do

venture to exclaim against. I do cry aloud against this; and I do say

this, that when we call it 'hard,' we are speaking of it softly. Why,

consider how it is! The 'Athenaeum' has done quite enough to _disprove

the proving_ of the wreck story,[135] and no more at all. The

disproving of the proof of the wreck story is indeed enough to

disprove the wreck story and to disprove mesmerism itself (as far as

the proof of mesmerism depends on the proof of the wreck story, and

no farther) with all doubters and undetermined inquirers; but with the

very large class of previous _believers_, this disproof of a proof

is a mere accident, and cannot be expected to have much logical

consequence. Believing that such things may be as this revelation of

a wreck, they naturally are less exacting of the stabilities of the

proving process. What we think probable we do not call severely for

the proof of. Moreover Miss Martineau is not only a believer in the

mysteries of mesmerism (and she wrote to me the other day that in

Birmingham, where she is, she has present cognisance of _three cases

of clairvoyance_), but she is a believer in the personal integrity

of her witnesses. She has what she has well called an 'incommunicable

confidence.' And this, however incommunicable, is sufficiently

comprehensible to all persons who know what personal faith is, to

place her 'honour,' I do maintain, high above any suspicion, any

charge with the breath of man's lips. I am sure you agree with me,

dear Mr. Chorley--ah! it will be a comfort and joy together. Dear Miss

Mitford and I often quarrel softly about literary life and its toils

and sorrows, she against and I in favour of; but we never could differ

about the worth and comfort of domestic affection.

Ever sincerely yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

I am delighted to hear of the novel. And the comedy?

[Footnote 135: One of the visions of Miss Martineau's 'apocalyptic

housemaid' related to the wreck of a vessel in which the Tynemouth

people were much interested. Unfortunately it appeared that news of

the wreck had reached the town shortly before her vision, and that she

had been out of doors immediately before submitting to the mesmeric

trance.]

_To Mr. Chorley_

50 Wimpole Street: April 28, 1845.

Dear Mr. Chorley,--... For Miss Martineau, is it not true that she

_has_ admitted her wreck story to have no proof? Surely she has.

Surely she said that the evidence was incapable, at this point of

time, of justification to the _exoteric_, and that the question had

sunk now to one of character, to which her opponent answered that it

had always _been_ one of character. And you must admit that the direct

and unmitigated manner of depreciating the reputation, not merely

of Jane Arrowsmith, but of Mrs. Wynyard, a personal friend of Miss

Martineau's to whom she professes great obligations, could not be

otherwise than exasperating to a woman of her generous temper, and

this just in the crisis of her gratitude for her restoration to life

and enjoyment by the means (as she considers it) of this friend. Not

that I feel at all convinced of her having been cured by mesmerism;

I have told her openly that I doubt it a little, and she is not angry

with me for saying so. Also, the wreck story, and (as you suggest)

the three new cases of clairvoyance; why, one _cannot_, you know, give

one's specific convictions to general sweeping testimonies, with a

mist all round them. Still, I do lean to believing this _class_ of

mysteries, and I see nothing more incredible in the apocalypse of

the wreck and other marvels of clairvoyance, than in that singular

adaptation of another person's senses, which is a common phenomenon

of the simple forms of mesmerism. If it is credible that a person in

a mesmeric sleep can taste the sourness of the vinegar on

another person's palate, I am ready to go the whole length of the

transmigration of senses. But after all, except from hearing so much,

I am as ignorant as you are, in my own experience. One of my sisters

was thrown into a sort of swoon, and could not open her eyelids,

though she heard what passed, once or twice or thrice; and she might

have been a prophetess by this time, perhaps, if, partly from her own

feeling on the subject, and partly from mine, she had not determined

never to try the experiment again. It is hideous and detestable to my

imagination; as I confessed to you, it makes my blood run backwards;

and if I were _you_, I would not (with the nervous weakness you speak

of) throw myself into the way of it, I really would not. Think of a

female friend of mine begging me to give her a lock of my hair, or

rather begging my sister to 'get it for her,' that she might send

it to a celebrated prophet of mesmerism in Paris, to have an oracle

concerning me. Did you ever, since the days of the witches, hear a

more ghastly proposition? It shook me so with horror, I had scarcely

voice to say 'no,' hough I _did_ say it very emphatically at last, I

assure you. A lock of my hair for a Parisian prophet? Why, if I had

yielded, I should have felt the steps of pale spirits treading as

thick as snow all over my sofa and bed, by day and night, and pulling

a corresponding lock of hair on my head at awful intervals. _I_, who

was born with a double set of nerves, which are always out of

order; the most excitable person in the world, and nearly the most

superstitious. I should have been scarcely sane at the end of a

fortnight, I believe of myself! Do you remember the little spirit in

gold shoe-buckles, who was a familiar of Heinrich Stilling's? Well,

I should have had a French one to match the German, with Balzac's

superfine boot-polish in place of the buckles, as surely as I lie here

a mortal woman.

I congratulate you (amid all cares and anxieties) upon the view

of Naples in the distance, but chiefly on your own happy and just

estimate of your selected position in life. It does appear to me

wonderfully and mournfully wrong, when men of letters, as it is too

much the fashion for them to do, take to dishonoring their profession

by fruitless bewailings and gnashings of teeth; when, all the time,

it must be their own fault if it is not the noblest in the world. Miss

Mitford treats me as a blind witness in this case; because I have seen

nothing of the literary world, or any other sort of world, and yet cry

against her 'pen and ink' cry. It is the cry I least like to hear from

her lips, of all others; and it is unworthy of them altogether. On the

lips of a woman of letters, it sounds like jealousy (which it

cannot be with _her_), as on the lips of a woman of the world, like

ingratitude. Madame Girardin's 'Ecole des Journalistes' deserved Jules

Janin's reproof of it; and there is something noble and touching in

that feeling of brotherhood among men of letters, which he invokes.

I am so glad to hear you say that I am right, glad for your sake and

glad for mine. In fact, there is something which is attractive to

_me_, and which has been attractive ever since I was as high as this

table, even in the old worn type of Grub Street authors and garret

poets. Men and women of letters are the first in the whole world to

me, and I would rather be the least among them, than 'dwell in the

courts of princes.'

Forgive me for writing so fast and far. Just as if you had nothing to

do but to read me. Oh, for patience for the novel.

I am, faithfully yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

_To Miss Thomson_[136]

50 Wimpole Street: Friday, May 16, 1845 [postmark].

I write one line to thank you, dear Miss Thomson, for _your_

translation (so far too liberal, though true to the spirit of my

intention) of my work for your album. How could it _not_ be a pleasure

to me to work for you?

As to my using those manuscripts otherwise than in your service, I

do not at all think of it, and I wish to say this. Perhaps I do not

(also) partake quite your 'divine fury' for converting our sex into

Greek scholarship, and I do not, I confess, think it as desirable as

you do. Where there is a love for poetry, and thirst for beauty strong

enough to justify labour, let these impulses, which are noble, be

obeyed; but in the case of the multitude it is different; and the

mere _fashion of scholarship_ among women would be a disagreeable vain

thing, and worse than vain. You, who are a Greek yourself, know that

the Greek language is not to be learnt in a flash of lightning and

by Hamiltonian systems, but that it swallows up year after year of

studious life. Now I have a 'doxy' (as Warburton called it), that

there is no exercise of the mind so little profitable to the mind

as the study of languages. It is the nearest thing to a passive

recipiency--is it not?--as a mental action, though it leaves one as

weary as ennui itself. Women want to be made to _think actively_:

their apprehension is quicker than that of men, but their defect lies

for the most part in the logical faculty and in the higher mental

activities. Well, and then, to remember how our own English poets

are neglected and scorned; our poets of the Elizabethan age! I would

rather that my countrywomen began by loving _these_.

Not that I would blaspheme against Greek poetry, or depreciate the

knowledge of the language as an attainment. I congratulate _you_ on

it, though I never should think of trying to convert other women into

a desire for it. Forgive me.

To think of Mr. Burges's comparing my Nonnus to the right Nonnus makes

my hair stand on end, and the truth is I had flattered myself that

nobody would take such trouble. I have not much reverence for Nonnus,

and have pulled him and pushed him and made him stand as I chose,

never fearing that my naughty impertinences would be brought to light.

For the rest, I thank you gratefully (and may I respectfully and

gratefully thank Miss Bayley?) for the kind words of both of you, both

in this letter and as my sister heard them. It is delightful to me

to find such grace in the eyes of dearest Mr. Kenyon's friends, and I

remain, dear Miss Thomson,

Truly yours, and gladly,

E.B.B.

If there should be anything more at any time for me to do, I trust to

your trustfulness.

[Footnote 136: Afterwards Mdme. Emil Braun; see the letter of

January 9, 1850. At this time she was engaged in editing an album

or anthology, to which she had asked Miss Barrett to contribute some

classical translations.]

_To Miss Thomson_

50 Wimpole Street: Monday [1845].

My dear Miss Thomson,--Believe of me that it can only give me pleasure

when you are affectionate enough to treat me as a friend; and for

the rest, nobody need apologise for taking another into the

vineyards--least Miss Bayley and yourself to _me_. At the first

thought I felt sure that there must be a great deal about vines in

these Greeks of ours, and am surprised, I confess, in turning from one

to another, to find how few passages of length are quotable, and how

the images drop down into a line or two. Do you know the passage in

the seventh 'Odyssey' where there is a vineyard in different stages of

ripeness?--of which Pope has made the most, so I tore up what I

began to write, and leave you to him. It is in Alcinous' gardens, and

between the first and second hundred lines of the book. The one from

the 'Iliad,' open to Miss Bayley's objection, is yet too beautiful

and appropriate, I fancy, for you to throw over. Curious it is that

my first recollection went from that shield of Achilles to Hesiod's

'Shield of Hercules,' from which I send you a version--leaving out

of it what dear Miss Bayley would object to on a like ground with the

other:

Some gathered grapes, with reap-hooks in their hands,

While others bore off from the gathering hands

Whole baskets-full of bunches, black and white,

From those great ridges heaped up into fight,

With vine-leaves and their curling tendrils. So

They bore the baskets ...

... Yes! and all were saying

Their jests, while each went staggering in a row

Beneath his grape-load to the piper's playing.

The grapes were purple-ripe. And here, in fine,

Men trod them out, and there they drained the wine.

In the 'Works and Days' Hesiod says again, what is not worth your

listening to, perhaps:

And when that Sinus and Orion come

To middle heaven, and when Aurora--she

O' the rosy fingers--looks inquiringly

Full on Arcturus, straightway gather home

The general vintage. And, I charge you, see

All, in the sun and open air, outlaid

Ten days and nights, and five days in the shade.

The sixth day, pour in vases the fine juice--

The gift of Bacchus, who gives joys for use.

Anacreon talks to the point so well that you must forgive him, I

think, for being Anacreontic, and take from his hands what is not

defiled. The translation you send me does not 'smell of Anacreon,' nor

please me. Where did you get it? Would this be at all fresher?

Grapes that wear a purple skin,

Men and maidens carry in,

Brimming baskets on their shoulders,

Which they topple one by one

Down the winepress. Men are holders

Of the place there, and alone

Tread the grapes out, crush them down,

Letting loose the soul of wine--

Praising Bacchus as divine,

With the loud songs called his own!

You are aware of the dresser of the vine in Homer's 'Hymn to Mercury'

translated so exquisitely by Shelley, and of a very beautiful single

figure in Theocritus besides. Neither probably would suit your

purpose. In the 'Pax' of Aristophanes there is an idle 'Chorus' who

talks of looking at the vines and watching the grapes ripen, and

eating them at last, but there is nothing of vineyard work in it, so I

dismiss the whole.

For 'Hector and Andromache,' would you like me to try to do it for

you? It would amuse me, and you should not be bound to do more with

what I send you than to throw it into the fire if it did not meet

your wishes precisely. The same observation applies, remember, to this

little sheet, which I have _kept_--delayed sending--just because I

wanted to let you have a trial of my strength on 'Andromache' in the

same envelope; but the truth is that it is not _begun_ yet, partly

through other occupation, and partly through the lassitude which the

cold wind of the last few days always brings down on me. Yesterday I

made an effort, and felt like a broken stick--not even a bent one!

So wait for a warm day (and what a season we have had! I have been

walking up and down stairs and pretending to be quite well), and I

will promise to do my best, and certainly an inferior hand may get

nearer to touch the great Greek lion's mane than Pope's did.

Will you give my love to dear Miss Bayley? She shall hear from me--and

_you_ shall, in a day or two. And do not mind Mr. Kenyon. He 'roars as

softly as a sucking dove;' nevertheless he is an intolerant monster,

as I half told him the other day.

Believe me, dear Miss Thomson,

Affectionately yours,

E.B.B.

_To Mr. Westwood_

50 Wimpole Street: May 22, 1845.

Did you persevere with 'Sordello'? I hope so. Be sure that we may all

learn (as poets) much and deeply from it, for the writer speaks true

oracles. When you have read it through, then read for relaxation

and recompense the last 'Bell and Pomegranate' by the same poet, his

'Colombo's Birthday,' which is exquisite. Only 'Pippa Passes' I lean

to, or kneel to, with the deepest reverence. Wordsworth has been in

town, and is gone. Tennyson is still here. He likes London, I hear,

and hates Cheltenham, where he resides with his family, and he smokes

pipe after pipe, and does not mean to write any more poems. Are we to

sing a requiem?

Believe me, faithfully yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT.

_To H.S. Boyd_

Saturday, July 21, 1845 [postmark].

My very dear Friend,--You are kind to exceeding kindness, and I am as

grateful as any of your long-ago kind invitations ever found me. It is

something pleasant, indeed, and like a return to life, to be asked by

you to spend two or three days in your house, and I thank you for this

pleasantness, and for the goodness, on your own part, which induced

it. You may be perfectly sure that no Claypon, though he should live

in Arcadia, would be preferred by me to _you_ as a host, and I wonder

how you could entertain the imagination of such a thing. Mr. Kenyon,

indeed, has asked me repeatedly to spend a few hours on a sofa in his

house, and, the Regent's Park being so much nearer than you are, I

had promised to think of it. But I have not yet found it possible to

accomplish even that quarter of a mile's preferment, and my ambition

is forced to be patient when I begin to think of St. John's Wood. I am

considerably stronger, and increasing in strength, and in time, with

a further advance of the summer, I may do 'such things--what they are

yet, I know not.' Yes, I _know_ that they relate to _you_, and that I

have a hope, as well as an earnest, affectionate desire, to sit face

to face with you once more before this summer closes. Do, in the

meantime, believe that I am very grateful to you for your kind,

considerate proposal, and that it is not made in vain for my wishes,

and that I am not likely willingly 'to spend two or three days' with

anybody in the world before I do so with yourself.

Mr. Hunter has not paid us his usual Saturday's visit, and therefore

I have no means of answering the questions you put in relation to him.

We will ask him about 'times and seasons' when next we see him, and

you shall hear.

Did you ever hear much of Robert Montgomery, commonly called Satan

Montgomery because the author of 'Satan,' of the 'Omnipresence of the

Deity,' and of various poems which pass through edition after

edition, nobody knows how or _why_? I understand that his pew (he is

a clergyman) is sown over with red rosebuds from ladies of the

congregation, and that the same fair hands have made and presented to

him, in the course of a single season, one hundred pairs of slippers.

Whereupon somebody said to this Reverend Satan, 'I never knew before,

Mr. Montgomery, that you were a _centipede_'

Dearest Mr. Boyd's affectionate and grateful

ELIBET.

Through the summer of 1845, Miss Barrett, as usual, recovered

strength, but so slightly that her doctor urged that she should not

face the winter in England. Plans were accordingly made for her

going abroad, to which the following letters refer, but the scheme

ultimately broke down before the prohibition of Mr. Barrett--a

prohibition for which no valid reason was put forward, and which, to

say the least, bore the colour of unaccountable indifference to his

daughter's health and wishes. The matter is of some importance on

account of its bearing on the action taken by Miss Barrett in the

autumn of the following year.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Monday, July 29, 1845 [postmark].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am ashamed not to have written before, and

yet have courage enough to ask you to write to me as soon as you

can. Day by day I have had good intentions enough (the fact is)

about writing, to seem to deserve some good deeds from you, which

is contrary to all wisdom and reason, I know, but is rather natural,

after all. What _my_ deeds have been, you will be apt to ask. Why, all

manner of idleness, which is the most interrupting, you know, of

all things. The Hedleys have been flitting backwards and forwards,

staying, some of them, for a month at a time in London, and then

going, and then coming again; and I have had other visitors, few but

engrossing 'after their kind.' And I have been _getting well_--which

is a process--going out into the carriage two or three times a week,

abdicating my sofa for my armchair, moving from one room to another

now and then, and walking about mine quite as well as, and with

considerably more complacency than, a child of two years old.

Altogether, I do think that if you were kind enough to be glad to see

me looking better when you were in London, you would be kind enough to

be still gladder if you saw me now. Everybody praises me, and I

look in the looking-glass with a better conscience. Also, it is an

improving improvement, and will be, until, you know, the last hem of

the garment of summer is lost sight of, and then--and then--I must

either follow to another climate, or be ill again--_that_ I know, and

am prepared for. It is but dreary work, this undoing of my Penelope

web in the winter, after the doing of it through the summer, and the

more progress one makes in one's web, the more dreary the prospect of

the undoing of all these fine silken stitches. But we shall see....

Ever your affectionate

BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Tuesday [October 1845].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Do believe that I have not been, as I have

seemed, perhaps, forgetful of you through this silence. This last

proof of your interest and affection for me--in your letter to

Henrietta--quite rouses me to _speak out_ my remembrance of you, and

I have been remembering you all the time that I did not speak, only I

was so perplexed and tossed up and down by doubts and sadnesses as

to require some shock from without to force the speech from me. Your

verses, in their grace of kindness, and the ivy from Wordsworth's

cottage, just made me think to myself that I would write to you before

I left England, but when you talk really of coming to see me, why, I

must speak! You overcome me with the sense of your goodness to me.

Yet, after all, I will not have you come! The farewells are bad enough

which come to us, without our going to seek them, and I would rather

wait and meet you on the Continent, or in England again, than see you

now, just to part from you. And you cannot guess how shaken I am, and

how I cling to every plank of a little calm. Perhaps I am going on the

17th or 20th. Certainly I have made up my mind to do it, and shall do

it as a bare matter of duty; and it is one of the most painful acts

of duty which my whole life has set before me. The road is as rough as

possible, as far as I can see it. At the same time, being absolutely

convinced from my own experience and perceptions, and the unhesitating

advice of two able medical men (Dr. Chambers, one of them), that to

escape the English winter will be _everything for me_, and that it

involves the comfort and usefulness of the rest of my life, I have

resolved to do it, let the circumstances of the doing be as painful

as they may. If you were to see me you would be astonished to see the

work of the past summer; but all these improvements will ebb away with

the sun--while I am assured of permanent good if I leave England. The

struggle with me has been a very painful one; I cannot enter on the

how and wherefore at this moment. I had expected more help than I have

found, and am left to myself, and thrown so on my own sense of duty as

to feel it right, for the sake of future years, to make an effort to

stand by myself as I best can. At the same time, I will not tell you

that at the last hour something may not happen to keep me at home.

_That_ is neither impossible nor improbable. If, for instance, I find

that I cannot have one of my brothers with me, why, the going in that

case would be out of the question. Under ordinary circumstances I

shall go, and if the experiment of going fails, why, then I shall have

had the satisfaction of having tried it, and of knowing that it is

God's will which keeps me a prisoner, and makes me a burden. As it is,

I have been told that if I had gone years ago I _should be well

now_; that one lung is very slightly affected, but the nervous system

_absolutely shattered_, as the state of the pulse proves. I am in the

habit of taking forty drops of laudanum a day, and _cannot do with

less_, that is, the medical man _told me_ that I could not do with

less, saying so with his hand on the pulse. The cold weather, they

say, acts on the lungs, and produces the weakness indirectly, whereas

the necessary shutting up acts on the _nerves_ and prevents them from

having a chance of recovering their tone. And thus, without any mortal

disease, or any disease of equivalent seriousness, I am thrown out of

life, out of the ordinary sphere of its enjoyment and activity, and

made a burden to myself and to others. Whereas there is a means of

escape from these evils, and God has opened the door of escape, as

wide as I see it!

In all ways, for my own _happiness's sake_ I do need _a proof_ that

the evil is irremediable. And this proof (or the counter-proof) I am

about to seek in Italy.

Dr. Chambers has advised _Pisa_, and I go in the direct steamer from

the Thames to Leghorn. I have good courage, and as far as my own

strength goes, sufficient means.

Dearest Mrs. Martin, more than I thought at first of telling you, I

have told you. Much beside there is, painful to talk of, but I hope

I have determined to do what is right, and that the determination

has not been formed ungently, unscrupulously, nor unaffectionately in

respect to the feelings of others. I would die for some of those, but

there, has been affection opposed to affection.

This in confidence, of course. May God bless both of you! Pray for me,

dearest Mrs. Martin. Make up your mind to go somewhere soon--shall you

not?--before the winter shuts the last window from which you see the

sun.

Dr. Chambers said that he would 'answer for it' that the voyage would

rather do me good than harm. Let me suffer sea sickness or not, he

said, he would answer for its doing me no harm.

I hope to take Arabel with me, and either Storm or Henry. This is my

hope.

Gratefully and affectionately I think of all your kindness and

interest. May dear Mr. Martin lose nothing in this coming winter! I

shall think of you, and not cease to love you. Moreover, you shall

hear again from

Your ever affectionate

BA.

_To H.S. Boyd_

October 27, 1845 [postmark].

My very dear Friend,--It is so long since I wrote that I must write, I

must ruffle your thoughts with a little breath from my side. Listen

to me, my dear friend. That I have not written has scarcely been my

fault, but my misfortune rather, for I have been quite unstrung and

overcome by agitation and anxiety, and thought that I should be able

to tell you at last of being calmer and happier, but it was all in

vain. I do not leave England, my dear friend. It is decided that I

remain on in my prison. It was my full intention to go. I considered

it to be a clear duty, and I made up my mind to perform it, let the

circumstances be ever so painfully like obstacles; but when the

moment came it appeared impossible for me to set out alone, and also

impossible to take my brother and sister with me without involving

them in difficulties and displeasure. Now what I could risk for myself

I could not risk for others, and the very kindness with which they

desired me not to think of them only made me think of them more, as

was natural and just. So Italy is given up, and I fall back into the

hands of God, who is merciful, trusting Him with the time that shall

be.

Arabel would have gone to tell you all this a fortnight since, but one

of my brothers has been ill with fever which was not exactly typhus,

but of the typhoid character, and we knew that you would rather

not see her under the circumstances. He is very much better (it is

Octavius), and has been out of bed to-day and yesterday.

Do not reproach me either for not writing or for not going, my very

dear friend. I have been too heavy-hearted for words; and as to the

deeds, you would not have wished me to lead others into difficulties,

the extent and result of which no one could calculate. It would not

have been just of me.

And _you_, how are you, and what are you doing?

May God bless you, my dear dear friend!

Ever yours I am, affectionately and gratefully,

E.B.B.

_To Mr. Chorley_

50 Wimpole Street: November 1845.

I must trouble you with another letter of thanks, dear Mr. Chorley,

now that I have to thank you for the value of the work as well as

the kindness of the gift, for I have read your three volumes of

'Pomfret'[137] with interest and moral assent, and with great pleasure

in various ways: it is a pure, true book without effort, which, in

these days of gesture and rolling of the eyes, is an uncommon thing.

Also you make your 'private judgment' work itself out quietly as a

simple part of the love of truth, instead of being the loud heroic

virtue it is so apt in real life to profess itself, seldom moving

without drums and trumpets and the flying of party colours. All these

you have put down rightly, wisely, and boldly, and it was, in my mind,

no less wise than bold of you to let in that odour of Tyrrwhitism into

the folds of the purple, and so prevent the very possibility of any

'prestige.' If I complained it might be that your 'private judgment'

confines its reference to 'public opinion,' and shuns, too proudly

perhaps, the higher and deeper relations of human responsibility. But

there are difficulties, I see, and you choose your path advisedly, of

course. The best character in the book I take to be _Rose_; I

cannot hesitate in selecting him. He is so lifelike with the world's

conventional life that you hear his footsteps when he walks, and,

indeed, I think his boots were apt to creak just the _soupçon_ of

a creak, just as a gentleman's boots might, and he is excellently

consistent, even down to the choice of a wife whom he could patronise.

I hope you like your own Mr. Rose, and that you will forgive me for

jilting Grace for Helena, which I could not help any more than Walter

could. But now, may I venture to ask a question? Would it not have

been wise of you if, on the point of _reserve_, you had thrown a

deeper shade of opposition into the characters or rather manners of

these women? Helena sits like a statue (and could Grace have done

more?) when she wins Walter's heart in Italy. Afterwards, and by fits

at the time, indeed, the artist fire bursts from her, but there was a

great deal of smouldering when there should have been a clear heat to

justify Walter's change of feeling. And then, in respect to _that_,

do you really think that your Grace was generous, heroic (with the

evidence she had of the change) in giving up her engagement? For her

own sake, could she have done otherwise? I fancy not; the position

seems surrounded by its own necessities, and no room for a doubt.

I write on my own doubts, you see, and you will smile at them, or

understand all through them that if the book had not interested me

like a piece of real life, I should not find myself _backbiting_ as if

all these were 'my neighbours.' The pure tender feeling of the closing

scenes touched me to better purpose, believe me, and I applaud from

my heart and conscience your rejection of that low creed of 'poetical

justice' which is neither justice nor poetry which is as degrading

to virtue as false to experience, and which, thrown from your book,

raises it into a pure atmosphere at once.

I could go on talking, but remind myself (I do hope in time) that I

might show my gratitude better. With sincere wishes for the success

of the work (for just see how practically we come to trust to poetical

justices after all our theories--_I_, I mean, and _mine_!), and with

respect and esteem for the writer,

I remain very truly yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT.

[Footnote 137: A novel by Mr. Chorley, a copy of which he had

presented to Miss Barrett.]

_To Mrs. Jameson_

50 Wimpole Street: December 1, 1845.

My dear Mrs. Jameson,--I receive your letter, as I must do every sign

of your being near and inclined to think of me in kindness, gladly,

and assure you at once that whenever you can spend a half-hour on me

you will find me enough myself to have a true pleasure in welcoming

you, say any day except next Saturday or the Monday immediately

following.

As soon as I heard of your return to England I ventured to hope that

some good might come of it to me in my room here, besides the general

good, which I look for with the rest of the public, when the censer

swings back into the midst of us again. And how good of you, dear Mrs.

Jameson, to think of me there where the perfumes were set burning; it

makes me glad and grand that you should have been able to do so. Also

the kind wishes which came with the thoughts (you say) were not in

vain, for I have been very idle and very _well_; the angel of the

summer has done more for me even than usual, and till the last wave of

his wing I took myself to be quite well and at liberty, and even now

I am as well as anyone can be who has heard the prison door shut for a

whole winter at least, and knows it to be the only English alternative

of a grave. Which is a gloomy way of saying that I am well but forced

to shut myself up with disagreeable precautions all round, and I ought

to be gratified instead of gloomy. Believe me that I _shall_ be so

when you come to see me, remaining in the meanwhile

Most truly yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT.

_To Mrs. Martin_

Friday [about December 1845].

I am the guilty person, dearest Mrs. Martin! You would have heard from

Henrietta at least yesterday, only I persisted in promising to write

instead of her; and so, if there are reproaches, let them fall. Not

that I am audacious and without shame! But I have grown familiar with

an evil conscience as to these matters of not writing when I ought;

and long ago I grew familiar with your mercy and power of pardoning;

and then--and then--if silence and sulkiness are proved crimes of mine

to ever such an extreme, why it would not be unnatural. Do you think I

was born to live the life of an oyster, such as I _do_ live here? And

so, the moaning and gnashing of teeth are best done alone and without

taking anyone into confidence. And so, this is all I have to say for

myself, which perhaps you will be glad of; for you will be ready

to agree with me that next to such faults of idleness, negligence,

silence (call them by what names you please!) as I have been guilty

of, is the repentance of them, if indeed the latter be not the most

unpardonable of the two.

And what are you doing so late in Herefordshire? Is dear Mr. Martin

too well, and tempting the demons? I do hope that the next news of you

will be of your being about to approach the sun and visit us on the

road. You do not give your wisdom away to your friends, all of it, I

hope and trust--not even to Reynolds.

Tell Mr. Martin that a new great daily newspaper, professing

'_ultraism_' at the right end (meaning his and mine), is making

'mighty preparation,' to be called the 'Daily News,'[138] to be

edited by Dickens and to combine with the most liberal politics such

literature as gives character to the French journals--the objects

being both to help the people and to give a _status_ to men of

letters, socially and politically--great objects which will not

be attained, I fear, by any such means. In the first place, I have

misgivings as to Dickens. He has not, I think, _breadth_ of mind

enough for such work, with all his gifts; but we shall see. An immense

capital has been offered and actually advanced. Be good patriots

and order the paper. And talking of papers, I hope you read in the

'Morning Chronicle' Landor's verses to my friend and England's poet,

Mr. Browning.[139] They have much beauty.

You know that Occy has been ill, and that he is well? I hope you are

not so behindhand in our news as not to know. For me, I am not yet

undone by the winter. I still sit in my chair and walk about the room.

But the prison doors are shut close, and I could dash myself

against them sometimes with a passionate impatience of the need-less

captivity. I feel so intimately and from evidence, how, with air and

warmth together in any fair proportion, I should be as well and happy

as the rest of the world, that it is intolerable--well, it is better

to sympathise quietly with Lady--and other energetic runaways, than

amuse you with being riotous to no end; and it is _best_ to write

one's own epitaph still more quietly, is it not?...

And oh how lightly I write, and then sigh to think of what different

colours my spirits and my paper are. Do you know what it is to

laugh, that you may not cry? Yet I hold a comfort fast.... Your very

affectionate

BA.

[Footnote 138: The first number of the _Daily News_ appeared on

January 2l, 1846, under the editorship of Charles Dickens.]

[Footnote 139: The well-known lines beginning, 'There is delight in

singing.' They appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ for November 22,

1845.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Saturday [February-March 1846].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Indeed it has been tantalising and provoking

to have you close by without being able to gather a better advantage

from it than the knowledge that you were suffering. So passes the

world and the glory of it. I have been vexed into a high state of

morality, I assure you. Now that you are gone away I hear from you

again; and it does seem to me that almost always it happens so, and

that you come to London to be ill and leave it before you can be well

again. It is a comfort in every case to know of your being better, and

Hastings is warm and quiet, and the pretty country all round (mind you

go and see the 'Rocks' _par excellence_)! will entice you into very

gentle exercise. At the same time, don't wish me into the house you

speak of. I can lose nothing here, shut up in my prison, and the

nightingales come to my windows and sing through the sooty panes. If

I were at Hastings I should risk the chance of recovering liberty, and

the consolations of slavery would not reach me as they do here. Also,

if I were to set my heart upon Hastings, I might break it at leisure;

there would be exactly as much difficulty in turning my face that way

as towards Italy--ah, you do not understand! And _I do, at last_, I am

sorry to say; and it has been very long, tedious and reluctant work,

the learning of the lesson....

Did Henrietta tell you that I heard at last from Miss Martineau, who

thought me in Italy, she said, and therefore was silent? She has sent

me her new work (have you read it?) and speaks of her strength and of

being able to walk fifteen miles a day, which seems to me like a fairy

tale, or the 'Three-leagued Boots' at least.

What am I doing, to tell you of? Nothing! The winter is kind, and

this divine 'muggy' weather (is _that_ the technical word and spelling

thereof?), which gives all reasonable people colds in their heads,

leaves _me_ the hope of getting back to the summer without much

injury. A friend of mine--one of the greatest poets in England

too--brought me primroses and polyanthuses the other day, as they are

grown in Surrey![140] Surely it must be nearer spring than we think.

Dearest Mrs. Martin, write and say how you are. And say, God bless

you, both the yous, and mention Mr. Martin particularly, and what your

plans are.

Ever your affectionate

BA.

[Footnote 140:

Beloved, them hast brought me many flowers

Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,

And winter, and it seemed as if they grew

In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.

_Sonnets from the Portuguese_, xliv.]

_To Mrs. Martin_

Tuesday [end of June 1846].

So, my dearest Mrs. Martin, you are quite angry with all of us and

with me chiefly. Oh, you need not say no! I see it, I understand it,

and shall therefore take up my own cause precisely as if I were an

injured person. In the first place, dearest Mrs. Martin, when you

wrote to me (at last!) to say that we were both guilty correspondents,

you should have spoken in the singular number; for I was not guilty

at all, I beg to say, while you were on the Continent. You were

uncertain, you said, on going, where you should go and how long

you should stay, and you promised to write and give me some sort of

address--a promise never kept--and where was I to write to you? I

heard for the first time, from the Peytons, of your being at Pau, and

then you were expected at home. So innocent I am, and because it is

a pleasure rather rare to make a sincere profession of innocence, I

meant to write to you at least ten days ago; and then (believe me you

will, without difficulty) the dreadful death of poor Mr. Haydon,[141]

the artist, quite upset me, and made me disinclined to write a word

beyond necessary ones. I thank God that I never saw him--poor gifted

Haydon--but, a year and a half ago, we had a correspondence which

lasted through several months and was very pleasant while it lasted.

Then it was dropped, and only a few days before the event he wrote

three or four notes to me to ask me to take charge of some papers

and pictures, which I acceded to as once I had done before. He was

constantly in pecuniary difficulty, and in apprehension of the seizure

of goods; and nothing of _fear_ suggested itself to my mind--nothing.

The shock was very great. Oh! I do not write to you to write of this.

Only I would have you understand the real case, and that it is not an

excuse, and that it was natural for me to be shaken a good deal. No

artist is left behind with equal largeness of poetical conception! If

the hand had always obeyed the soul, he would have been a genius of

the first order. As it is, he lived on the _slope_ of greatness

and could not be steadfast and calm. His life was one long agony of

self-assertion. Poor, poor Haydon! See how the world treats those who

try too openly for its gratitude! 'Tom Thumb for ever' over the heads

of the giants.

So you heard that I was quite well? Don't believe everything you hear.

But I am really in _a way_ to be well, if I could have such sunshine

as we have been burning in lately, and a fair field of peace besides.

Generally, I am able to go out every day, either walking or in

the carriage--'_walking_' means as far as Queen Anne's Street. The

wonderful winter did not cast me down, and the hot summer helps me up

higher. Now, to _keep in the sun_ is the problem to solve; and if

I can do it, I shall be 'as well as anybody.' If I can't, as ill as

ever. Which is the _résumé_ of me, without a word more....

Your ever affectionate

BA.

[Footnote 141: He committed suicide on June 22, under the influence

of the disappointment caused by the indifference of the public to his

pictures, the final instance of which was its flocking to see General

Tom Thumb and neglecting Haydon's large pictures of 'Aristides'

and 'Nero,' which were being exhibited in an adjoining room of the

Egyptian Hall.]

_To H.S. Boyd_

June 27, 1846 [postmark].

Dearest Mr. Boyd,--Let me be clear of your reproaches for not going

to you this week. The truth is that I have been so much shocked and

shaken by the dreadful suicide of poor Mr. Haydon, the artist, I had

not spirits for it. He was not personally my friend. I never saw him

face to face. But we had corresponded, and one of his last acts was an

act of _trust_ towards me. Also I admired his genius. And all to end

_so_! It has naturally affected me much.

So I could not come, but in a few days I _will_ come; and in the

meantime, I have had the sound of your voice to think of, more than

I could think of the deep melodious bells, though they made the right

and solemn impression. How I felt, to be under your roof again!

May God bless you, my very dear friend.

These words in the greatest haste.

From your ever affectionate

ELIBET