But my letter came last night, did it not?
Another thing--no, _to-morrow_--for time presses, and, in all cases,
_Tuesday_--remember!
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Saturday.
[Post-mark, December 20, 1845.]
I have your letter now, and now I am sorry I sent mine. If I wrote
that you had 'forgotten to write,' I did not mean it; not a word! If I
had meant it I should not have written it. But it would have been
better for every reason to have waited just a little longer before
writing at all. A besetting sin of mine is an impatience which makes
people laugh when it does not entangle their silks, pull their knots
tighter, and tear their books in cutting them open.
How right you are about Mr. Lowell! He has a refined fancy and is
graceful for an American critic, but the truth is, otherwise, that he
knows nothing of English poetry or the next thing to nothing, and has
merely had a dream of the early dramatists. The amount of his reading
in that direction is an article in the _Retrospective Review_ which
contains extracts; and he re-extracts the extracts, re-quotes the
quotations, and, 'a pede Herculem,' from the foot infers the man, or
rather from the sandal-string of the foot, infers and judges the soul
of the man--it is comparative anatomy under the most speculative
conditions. How a writer of his talents and pretensions could make up
his mind to make up a book on such slight substratum, is a curious
proof of the state of literature in America. Do you not think so? Why
a lecturer on the English Dramatists for a 'Young Ladies' academy'
here in England, might take it to be necessary to have better
information than he could gather from an odd volume of an old review!
And then, Mr. Lowell's naïveté in showing his authority,--as if the
Elizabethan poets lay mouldering in inaccessible manuscript somewhere
below the lowest deep of Shakespeare's grave,--is curious beyond the
rest! Altogether, the fact is an epigram on the surface-literature of
America. As you say, their books do not suit us:--Mrs. Markham might
as well send her compendium of the History of France to M. Thiers. If
they _knew_ more they could not give parsley crowns to their own
native poets when there is greater merit among the rabbits. Mrs.
Sigourney has just sent me--just this morning--her 'Scenes in my
Native Land' and, peeping between the uncut leaves, I read of the poet
Hillhouse, of 'sublime spirit and Miltonic energy,' standing in 'the
temple of Fame' as if it were built on purpose for him. I suppose he
is like most of the American poets, who are shadows of the true, as
flat as a shadow, as colourless as a shadow, as lifeless and as
transitory. Mr. Lowell himself is, in his verse-books, poetical, if
not a poet--and certainly this little book we are talking of is
grateful enough in some ways--you would call it a _pretty book_--would
you not? Two or three letters I have had from him ... all very
kind!--and _that_ reminds me, alas! of some ineffable ingratitude on
my own part! When one's conscience grows too heavy, there is nothing
for it but to throw it away!--
Do you remember how I tried to tell you what he said of you, and how
you would not let me?
Mr. Mathews said of _him_, having met him once in society, that he was
the concentration of conceit in appearance and manner. But since then
they seem to be on better terms.
Where is the meaning, pray, of E.B._C._? _your_ meaning, I mean?
My true initials are E.B.M.B.--my long name, as opposed to my short
one, being Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett!--there's a full length
to take away one's breath!--Christian name ... Elizabeth
Barrett:--surname, Moulton Barrett. So long it is, that to make it
portable, I fell into the habit of doubling it up and packing it
closely, ... and of forgetting that I was a _Moulton_, altogether. One
might as well write the alphabet as all four initials. Yet our
family-name is _Moulton Barrett_, and my brothers reproach me
sometimes for sacrificing the governorship of an old town in Norfolk
with a little honourable verdigris from the Heralds' Office. As if I
cared for the _Retrospective Review_! Nevertheless it is true that I
would give ten towns in Norfolk (if I had them) to own some purer
lineage than that of the blood of the slave! Cursed we are from
generation to generation!--I seem to hear the 'Commination Service.'