_E.B.B. to R.B._
Wednesday-Thursday Evening
[Post-mark, July 4, 1845.]
Yes--I know the first part of the 'Duchess' and have it here--and for
the rest of the poem, don't mind about being very legible, or even
legible in the usual sense; and remember how it is my boast to be able
to read all such manuscript writing as never is read by people who
don't like caviare. Now you won't mind? really I rather like blots
than otherwise--being a sort of patron-saint of all manner of
untidyness ... if Mr. Kenyon's reproaches (of which there's a
stereotyped edition) are justified by the fact--and he has a great
organ of order, and knows 'disorderly persons' at a glance, I suppose.
But you won't be particular with _me_ in the matter of transcription?
_that_ is what I want to make sure of. And even if you are not
particular, I am afraid you are not well enough to be troubled by
writing, and writing and the thinking that comes with it--it would be
wiser to wait till you are quite well--now wouldn't it?--and my fear
is that the 'almost well' means 'very little better.' And why, when
there is no motive for hurrying, run any risk? Don't think that I will
help you to make yourself ill. That I refuse to do even so much work
as the 'little dessert-knife' in the way of murder, ... _do_ think! So
upon the whole, I expect nothing on Saturday from this distance--and
if it comes unexpectedly (I mean the Duchess and not Saturday) _let_
it be at no cost, or at the least cost possible, will you? I am
delighted in the meanwhile to hear of the quantity of 'mala herba';
and hemlock does not come up from every seed you sow, though you call
it by ever such bad names.
Talking of poetry, I had a newspaper 'in help of social and political
progress' sent to me yesterday from America--addressed to--just my
name ... _poetess, London_! Think of the simplicity of those wild
Americans in 'calculating' that 'people in general' here in England
know what a poetess is!--Well--the post office authorities, after
deep meditation, I do not doubt, on all probable varieties of the
chimpanzee, and a glance to the Surrey Gardens on one side, and the
Zoological department of Regent's Park on the other, thought of
'Poet's Corner,' perhaps, and wrote at the top of the parcel, 'Enquire
at Paternoster Row'! whereupon the Paternoster Row people wrote again,
'Go to Mr. Moxon'--and I received my newspaper.
And talking of poetesses, I had a note yesterday (again) which quite
touched me ... from Mr. Hemans--Charles, the son of Felicia--written
with so much feeling, that it was with difficulty I could say my
perpetual 'no' to his wish about coming to see me. His mother's memory
is surrounded to him, he says, 'with almost a divine lustre'--and 'as
it cannot be to those who knew the writer alone and not the woman.' Do
you not like to hear such things said? and is it not better than your
tradition about Shelley's son? and is it not pleasant to know that
that poor noble pure-hearted woman, the Vittoria Colonna of our
country, should be so loved and comprehended by some ... by one at
least ... of her own house? Not that, in naming Shelley, I meant for a
moment to make a comparison--there is not equal ground for it.
Vittoria Colonna does not walk near Dante--no. And if you promised
never to tell Mrs. Jameson ... nor Miss Martineau ... I would confide
to you perhaps my secret profession of faith--which is ... which is
... that let us say and do what we please and can ... there _is_ a
natural inferiority of mind in women--of the intellect ... not by any
means, of the moral nature--and that the history of Art and of genius
testifies to this fact openly. Oh--I would not say so to Mrs. Jameson
for the world. I believe I was a coward to her altogether--for when
she denounced carpet work as 'injurious to the mind,' because it led
the workers into 'fatal habits of reverie,' I defended the carpet work
as if I were striving _pro aris et focis_, (_I_, who am so innocent of
all that knowledge!) and said not a word for the poor reveries which
have frayed away so much of silken time for me ... and let her go
away repeating again and again ... 'Oh, but _you_ may do carpet work
with impunity--yes! _because_ you can be writing poems all the
while.'!
Think of people making poems and rugs at once. There's complex
machinery for you!
I told you that I had a sensation of cold blue steel from her
eyes!--And yet I really liked and like and shall like her. She is very
kind I believe--and it was my mistake--and I correct my impressions of
her more and more to perfection, as _you_ tell me who know more of her
than I.
Only I should not dare, ... _ever_, I think ... to tell her that I
believe women ... all of us in a mass ... to have minds of quicker
movement, but less power and depth ... and that we are under your
feet, because we can't stand upon our own. Not that we should either
be quite under your feet! so you are not to be too proud, if you
please--and there is certainly some amount of wrong--: but it never
will be righted in the manner and to the extent contemplated by
certain of our own prophetesses ... nor ought to be, I hold in
intimate persuasion. One woman indeed now alive ... and only _that_
one down all the ages of the world--seems to me to justify for a
moment an opposite opinion--that wonderful woman George Sand; who has
something monstrous in combination with her genius, there is no
denying at moments (for she has written one book, Leila, which I could
not read, though I am not easily turned back,) but whom, in her good
and evil together, I regard with infinitely more admiration than all
other women of genius who are or have been. Such a colossal nature in
every way,--with all that breadth and scope of faculty which women
want--magnanimous, and loving the truth and loving the people--and
with that 'hate of hate' too, which you extol--so eloquent, and yet
earnest as if she were dumb--so full of a living sense of beauty, and
of noble blind instincts towards an ideal purity--and so proving a
right even in her wrong. By the way, what you say of the Vidocq museum
reminds me of one of the chamber of masonic trial scenes in
'Consuelo.' Could you like to see those knives?
I began with the best intentions of writing six lines--and see what is
written! And all because I kept my letter back ... from a _doubt about
Saturday_--but it has worn away, and the appointment stands good ...
for me: I have nothing to say against it.
But belief in mesmerism is not the same thing as general unbelief--to
do it justice--now is it? It may be super-belief as well. Not that
there is not something ghastly and repelling to me in the thought of
Dr. Elliotson's great bony fingers seeming to 'touch the stops' of a
whole soul's harmonies--as in phreno-magnetism. And I should have
liked far better than hearing and seeing _that_, to have heard _you_
pour the 'cupful of Diderot's rinsings,' out,--and indeed I can fancy
a little that you and how you could do it--and break the cup too
afterwards!
Another sheet--and for what?
What is written already, if you read, you do so meritoriously--and
it's an example of bad writing, if you want one in the poems. I am
ashamed, you may see, of having written too much, (besides)--which is
_much_ worse--but one writes and writes: _I_ do at least--for _you_
are irreproachable. Ever yours my dear friend, as if I had not written
... or _had_!