Dear Mr. Browning,--The fault was clearly with me and not with you.
When I had an Italian master, years ago, he told me that there was an
unpronounceable English word which absolutely expressed me, and which
he would say in his own tongue, as he could not in mine--'_testa
lunga_.' Of course, the signor meant _headlong_!--and now I have had
enough to tame me, and might be expected to stand still in my stall.
But you see I do not. Headlong I was at first, and headlong I
continue--precipitously rushing forward through all manner of nettles
and briars instead of keeping the path; guessing at the meaning of
unknown words instead of looking into the dictionary--tearing open
letters, and never untying a string,--and expecting everything to be
done in a minute, and the thunder to be as quick as the lightning. And
so, at your half word I flew at the whole one, with all its possible
consequences, and wrote what you read. Our common friend, as I think
he is, Mr. Horne, is often forced to entreat me into patience and
coolness of purpose, though his only intercourse with me has been by
letter. And, by the way, you will be sorry to hear that during his
stay in Germany _he_ has been 'headlong' (out of a metaphor) twice;
once, in falling from the Drachenfels, when he only just saved himself
by catching at a vine; and once quite lately, at Christmas, in a fall
on the ice of the Elbe in skating, when he dislocated his left
shoulder in a very painful manner. He is doing quite well, I believe,
but it was sad to have such a shadow from the German Christmas tree,
and he a stranger.
In art, however, I understand that it does not do to be headlong, but
patient and laborious--and there is a love strong enough, even in me,
to overcome nature. I apprehend what you mean in the criticism you
just intimate, and shall turn it over and over in my mind until I get
practical good from it. What no mere critic sees, but what you, an
artist, know, is the difference between the thing desired and the
thing attained, between the idea in the writer's mind and the [Greek:
eidôlon] cast off in his work. All the effort--the quick'ning of the
breath and beating of the heart in pursuit, which is ruffling and
injurious to the general effect of a composition; all which you call
'insistency,' and which many would call superfluity, and which _is_
superfluous in a sense--_you_ can pardon, because you understand. The
great chasm between the thing I say, and the thing I would say, would
be quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours,
if the desire did not master the despondency. 'Oh for a horse with
wings!' It is wrong of me to write so of myself--only you put your
finger on the root of a fault, which has, to my fancy, been a little
misapprehended. I do not _say everything I think_ (as has been said of
me by master-critics) but I _take every means to say what I think_,
which is different!--or I fancy so!
In one thing, however, you are wrong. Why should you deny the full
measure of my delight and benefit from your writings? I could tell you
why you should not. You have in your vision two worlds, or to use the
language of the schools of the day, you are both subjective and
objective in the habits of your mind. You can deal both with abstract
thought and with human passion in the most passionate sense. Thus, you
have an immense grasp in Art; and no one at all accustomed to consider
the usual forms of it, could help regarding with reverence and
gladness the gradual expansion of your powers. Then you are
'masculine' to the height--and I, as a woman, have studied some of
your gestures of language and intonation wistfully, as a thing beyond
me far! and the more admirable for being beyond.
Of your new work I hear with delight. How good of you to tell me. And
it is not dramatic in the strict sense, I am to understand--(am I
right in understanding so?) and you speak, in your own person 'to the
winds'? no--but to the thousand living sympathies which will awake to
hear you. A great dramatic power may develop itself otherwise than in
the formal drama; and I have been guilty of wishing, before this hour
(for reasons which I will not thrust upon you after all my tedious
writing), that you would give the public a poem unassociated directly
or indirectly with the stage, for a trial on the popular heart. I
reverence the drama, but--
_But_ I break in on myself out of consideration for you. I might have
done it, you will think, before. I vex your 'serene sleep of the
virtuous' like a nightmare. Do not say 'No.' I am _sure_ I do! As to
the vain parlance of the world, I did not talk of the 'honour of your
acquaintance' without a true sense of honour, indeed; but I shall
willingly exchange it all (and _now_, if you please, at this moment,
for fear of worldly mutabilities) for the 'delight of your
friendship.'
Believe me, therefore, dear Mr. Browning,
Faithfully yours, and gratefully,