_(Tuesday)_
_E.B.B. to R.B._
Sunday.
[Post-mark, January 19, 1846.]
Your letter came just after the hope of one had past--the latest
Saturday post had gone, they said, and I was beginning to be as vexed
as possible, looking into the long letterless Sunday. Then, suddenly
came the knock--the postman redivivus--just when it seemed so beyond
hoping for--it was half past eight, observe, and there had been a post
at nearly eight--suddenly came the knock, and your letter with it. Was
I not glad, do you think?
And you call the _Athenæum_ 'kind and satisfactory'? Well--I was angry
instead. To make us wait so long for an 'article' like _that_, was not
over-kind certainly, nor was it 'satisfactory' to class your peculiar
qualities with other contemporary ones, as if they were not peculiar.
It seemed to me cold and cautious, from the causes perhaps which you
mention, but the extracts will work their own way with everybody who
knows what poetry is, and for others, let the critic do his worst with
them. For what is said of 'mist' I have no patience because I who know
when you are obscure and never think of denying it in some of your
former works, do hold that this last number is as clear and
self-sufficing to a common understanding, as far as the expression and
medium goes, as any book in the world, and that Mr. Chorley was bound
in verity to say so. If I except that one stanza, you know, it is to
make the general observation stronger. And then 'mist' is an infamous
word for your kind of obscurity. You never _are_ misty, not even in
'Sordello'--never vague. Your graver cuts deep sharp lines,
always--and there is an extra-distinctness in your images and
thoughts, from the midst of which, crossing each other infinitely, the
general significance seems to escape. So that to talk of a 'mist,'
when you are obscurest, is an impotent thing to do. Indeed it makes me
angry.
But the suggested virtue of 'self-renunciation' only made me smile,
because it is simply nonsense ... nonsense which proves itself to be
nonsense at a glance. So genius is to renounce itself--_that_ is the
new critical doctrine, is it? Now is it not foolish? To recognize the
poetical faculty of a man, and then to instruct him in
'self-renunciation' in that very relation--or rather, to hint the
virtue of it, and hesitate the dislike of his doing otherwise? What
atheists these critics are after all--and how the old heathens
understood the divinity of gifts better, beyond any comparison. We may
take shame to ourselves, looking back.
Now, shall I tell you what I did yesterday? It was so warm, so warm,
the thermometer at 68 in this room, that I took it into my head to
call it April instead of January, and put on a cloak and walked
down-stairs into the drawing-room--walked, mind! Before, I was carried
by one of my brothers,--even to the last autumn-day when I went out--I
never walked a step for fear of the cold in the passages. But
yesterday it was so wonderfully warm, and I so strong besides--it was
a feat worthy of the day--and I surprised them all as much as if I had
walked out of the window instead. That kind dear Stormie, who with all
his shyness and awkwardness has the most loving of hearts in him, said
that he was '_so_ glad to see me'!
Well!--setting aside the glory of it, it would have been as wise
perhaps if I had abstained; our damp detestable climate reaches us
otherwise than by cold, and I am not quite as well as usual this
morning after an uncomfortable feverish night--not very unwell, mind,
nor unwell at all in the least degree of consequence--and I tell you,
only to show how susceptible I really am still, though 'scarcely an
invalid,' say the complimenters.
What a way I am from your letter--that letter--or seem to be
rather--for one may think of one thing and yet go on writing
distrustedly of other things. So you are 'grateful' to my sisters ...
_you_! Now I beseech you not to talk such extravagances; I mean such
extravagances as words like these _imply_--and there are far worse
words than these, in the letter ... such as I need not put my finger
on; words which are sense on my lips, but no sense at all on yours,
and which make me disquietedly sure that you are under an illusion.
Observe!--_certainly_ I should not choose to have a '_claim_,' see!
Only, what I object to, in 'illusions,' 'miracles,' and things of that
sort, is the want of continuity common to such. When Joshua caused the
sun to stand still, it was not for a year even!--Ungrateful, I am!
And 'pretty well' means 'not well' I am afraid--or I should be gladder
still of the new act. You will tell me on Tuesday what 'pretty well'
means, and if your mother is better--or I may have a letter
to-morrow--dearest! May God bless you!
To-morrow too, at half past three o'clock, how joyful I shall be that
my 'kind considerateness' decided not to receive you until Tuesday. My
very kind considerateness, which made me eat my dinner to-day!