The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 17

Ever affectionately yours, E.B.B.

_To Mrs. Martin_ May 26, 1843.

... I thank you for your part in the gaining of my bed, dearest Mrs.

Martin, most earnestly; and am quite ready to believe that it was gained by _wishdom_, which believing is wisdom! No, you would certainly never recognise my prison if you were to see it. The bed, like a sofa and no Bed; the large table placed out in the room, towards the wardrobe end of it; the sofa rolled where a sofa should be rolled--opposite the arm-chair: the drawers crowned with a coronal of shelves fashioned by Sette and Co. (of papered deal and crimson merino) to carry my books; the washing table opposite turned into a cabinet with another coronal of shelves; and Chaucer's and Homer's busts in guard over these two departments of English and Greek poetry; three more busts consecrating the wardrobe which there was no annihilating; and the window--oh, I must take a new paragraph for the window, I am out of breath.

In the window is fixed a deep box full of soil, where are _springing up_ my scarlet runners, nasturtiums, and convolvuluses, although they were disturbed a few days ago by the revolutionary insertion among them of a great ivy root with trailing branches so long and wide that the top tendrils are fastened to Henrietta's window of the higher storey, while the lower ones cover all my panes. It is Mr. Kenyon's gift. He makes the like to flourish out of mere flowerpots, and embower his balconies and windows, and why shouldn't this flourish with me? But certainly--there is no shutting my eyes to the fact that it does droop a little. Papa prophesies hard things against it every morning, 'Why, Ba, it looks worse and worse,' and everybody preaches despondency. I, however, persist in being sanguine, looking out for new shoots, and making a sure pleasure in the meanwhile by listening to the sound of the leaves against the pane, as the wind lifts them and lets them fall. Well, what do you think of my ivy? Ask Mr. Martin, if he isn't jealous already.

Have you read 'The Neighbours,' Mary Howitt's translation of Frederica Bremer's Swedish? Yes, perhaps. Have you read 'The Home,'[1] fresh from the same springs? _Do_, if you have not. It has not only charmed me, but made me happier and better: it is fuller of Christianity than the most orthodox controversy in Christendom; and represents to my perception or imagination a perfect and beautiful embodiment of Christian outward life from the inward, purely and tenderly. At the same time, I should tell you that Sette says, 'I might have liked it ten years ago, but it is too young and silly to give me any pleasure now.' For _me_, however, it is not too young, and perhaps it won't be for you and Mr. Martin. As to Sette, he is among the patriarchs, to say nothing of the lawyers--and there we leave him....

Ever your affectionate BA.

_To John Kenyan_ 50 Wimpole Street: Wednesday, or is it Thursday? [summer 1843].

My dear Cousin,--... I send you my friend Mr. Horne's new epic,[78]

and beg you, if you have an opportunity, to drop it at Mr. Eagles'

feet, so that he may pick it up and look at it. I have not gone through it (I have another copy), but it appears to me to be full of fine things. As to the author's fantasy of selling it for a farthing, I do not enter into the secret of it--unless, indeed, he should intend a sarcasm on the age's generous patronage of poetry, which is possible.

[Footnote 78: _Orion_, the early editions of which were sold at a farthing, in accordance with a fancy of the author. Miss Barrett reviewed it in the _Athenaum_ (July 1843).]

_To John Kenyan_ June 30, 1843.

Thank you, my dear Mr. Kenyon, for the Camden Society books, and also for these which I return; and also for the hope of seeing you, which I kept through yesterday. I honor Mrs. Coleridge for the readiness of reasoning and integrity in reasoning, for the learning, energy, and impartiality which she has brought to her purpose, and I agree with her in many of her objects; and disagree, by opposing her opponents with a fuller front than she is always inclined to do. In truth, I can never see anything in these sacramental ordinances except a prospective sign in one (Baptism), and a memorial sign in the other, the Lord's Supper, and could not recognise either under any modification as a peculiar instrument of grace, mystery, or the like.

The tendencies we have towards making mysteries of G.o.d's simplicities are as marked and sure as our missing the actual mystery upon occasion. G.o.d's love is the true mystery, and the sacraments are only too simple for us to understand. So you see I have read the book in spite of prophecies. After all I should like to cut it in two--it would be better for being shorter--and it might be clearer also. There is, in fact, some dullness and perplexity--a few pa.s.sages which are, to my impression, contradictory of the general purpose--something which is not generous, about nonconformity--and what I cannot help considering a superfluous tenderness for Puseyism. Moreover she is certainly wrong in imagining that the ante-Nicene fathers did not as a body teach regeneration by baptism--even Gregory n.a.z.ianzen, the most spiritual of many, did, and in the fourth century. But, after all, as a work of theological controversy it is very un-bitter and well-poised, gentle, and modest, and as the work of a woman _you_ must admire it and _we_ be proud of it--_that_ remains certain at last.

Poor Mr. Haydon! I am so sorry for his reverse in the cartoons.[79] It is a thunderbolt to him. I wonder, in the pauses of my regret, whether Mr. Selous is _your_ friend--whether 'Boadicea visiting the Druids,'

suggested by you, I think, as a subject, is this victorious 'Boadicea'

down for a hundred pound prize? You will tell me when you come.

I have just heard an uncertain rumour of the arrival of your brother.

If it is not all air, I congratulate you heartily upon a happiness only not past my appreciation.

Ever affectionately yours, E.B.B.

I send the copy of 'Orion' for _yourself_, which you asked for. It is in the fourth edition.

[Footnote 79: This refers to the compet.i.tion for the cartoons to be painted in the Houses of Parliament, in which Haydon was unsuccessful.

The disappointment was the greater, inasmuch as the scheme for decorating the building with historical pictures was mainly due to his initiative.]

_To Mrs. Martin_ July 8, 1843.

Thank you, my dearest Mrs. Martin, for your kind sign of interest in the questioning note, although I will not praise the _stenography_ of it. I shall be as brief to-day as you, not quite out of revenge, but because I have been writing to George and am the less p.r.o.ne to activities from having caught cold in an inscrutable manner, and being stiff and sore from head to foot and inclined to be a little feverish and irritable of nerves. No, it is not of the slightest consequence; I tell you the truth. But I would have written to you the day before yesterday if it had not been for this something between cramp and rheumatism, which was rather unbearable at first, but yesterday was better, and is to-day better than better, and to-morrow will leave me quite well, if I may prophesy. I only mention it lest you should have upbraided me for not answering your note in a moment, as it deserved to be answered. So don't put any nonsense into Georgie's head--forgive me for beseeching you! I have been very well--downstairs seven or eight times; lying on the floor in Papa's room; meditating _the chair_, which would have amounted to more than a meditation except for this little contrariety. In a day or two more, if this cool warmth perseveres in serving me, and no Ariel refills me 'with aches,' I shall fulfil your kind wishes perhaps and be out--and so, no more about me!...

Oh, I do believe you think me a c.o.c.kney--a metropolitan barbarian! But I persist in seeing no merit and no superior innocence in being shut up even in precincts of rose-trees, away from those great sources of human sympathy and occasions of mental elevation and instruction without which many natures grow narrow, many others gloomy, and perhaps, if the truth were known, very few prosper entirely, lit is not that I, who have always lived a good deal in solitude and live in it still more now, and love the country even painfully in my recollections of it, would decry either one or the other--solitude is most effective in a contrast, and if you do not break the bark you cannot bud the tree, and, in short (not to be _in long_), I could write a dissertation, which I will spare you, 'about it and about it.'

Tell George to lend you--nay, I think I will be generous and let him give you, although the author gave me the book--the copy of the new epic, 'Orion,' which he has with him. You have probably observed the advertis.e.m.e.nt, and are properly instructed that Mr. Horne the poet, who has sold three editions already at a farthing a copy, and is selling a fourth at a shilling, and is about to sell a fifth at half a crown (on the precise principle of the aerial machine--launching himself into popularity by a first impulse on the people), is my unknown friend, with whom I have corresponded these four years without having seen his face. Do you remember the beech leaves sent to me from Epping Forest? Yes, you must. Well, the sender is the poet, and the poem I think a very n.o.ble one, and I want you to think so too. So hereby I empower you to take it away from George and keep it for my sake--if you will!

Dear Mr. Martin was so kind as to come and see me as you commanded, and I must tell you that I thought him looking so better than well that I was more than commonly glad to see him. Give my love to him, and join me in as much metropolitan missionary zeal as will bring you both to London for six months of the year. Oh, I wish you would come!

Not that it is necessary for _you_, but that it will be _so_ good for _us_.

My ivy is growing, and I have _green blinds_, against which there is an outcry. They say that I do it out of envy, and for the equalisation of complexions.

Ever your affectionate, BA.

_To Mr. Westwood_ 50 Wimpole Street: August 1843.

Dear Mr. Westwood,--I thank you very much for the kindness of your questioning, and am able to answer that notwithstanding the, as it seems to you, fatal significance of a woman's silence, I am alive enough to be sincerely grateful for any degree of interest spent upon me. As to Flush, he should thank you too, but at the present moment he is quite absorbed in finding a cool place in this room to lie down in, having sacrificed his usual favorite place at my feet, his head upon them, oppressed by the torrid necessity of a thermometer above 70. To Flopsy's acquaintance he would aspire gladly, only hoping that Flopsy does not 'delight to bark and bite,' like dogs in general, because if he does Flush would as soon be acquainted with a _cat_, he says, for he does not pretend to be a hero. Poor Flush! 'the bright summer days on which I am ever likely to take him out for a ramble over hill and meadow' are never likely to shine! But he follows, or rather leaps into my wheeled chair, and forswears merrier company even now, to be near me. I am a good deal better, it is right to say, and look forward to a possible prospect of being better still, though I may be shut out from climbing the Brocken otherwise than in a vision.

You will see by the length of the 'Legend'[80] which I send to you (in its only printed form) _why_ I do not send it to you in ma.n.u.script.

Keep the book as long as you please. My new volume is not yet in the press, but I am writing more and more in a view to it, pleased with the thought that some kind hands are already stretched out in welcome and acceptance of what it may become. Not as idle as I appear, I have also been writing some fugitive verses for American magazines. This is my confession. Forgive its tediousness, and believe me thankfully and very sincerely yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

[Footnote 80: _The Lay of the Brown Rosary_.]

_To Mr. Westwood_ 50 Wimpole Street: September 2, 1843.

Dear Mr. Westwood,--Your letter comes to remind me how much I ought to be ashamed of myself.... I received the book in all safety, and read your kind words about my 'Rosary' with more grateful satisfaction than appears from the evidence. It is great pleasure to me to have written for such readers, and it is great hope to me to be able to write for them. The transcription of the 'Rosary' is a compliment which I never antic.i.p.ated, or you should have had the ma.n.u.script copy you asked for, although I have not a perfect one in my hands. The poem is full of faults, as, indeed, all my poems appear to myself to be when I look back upon them instead of looking down. I hope to be worthier in poetry some day of the generous appreciation which you and your friends have paid me in advance.

Tennyson is a great poet, I think, and Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' has to my mind very n.o.ble capabilities. Do you know Mr.

Horne's 'Orion,' the poem published for a farthing, to the wonder of booksellers and bookbuyers who could not understand 'the speculation in its eyes?' There are very fine things in this poem, and altogether I recommend it to your attention. But what is 'wanting' in Tennyson?

He can think, he can feel, and his language is highly expressive, characteristic, and harmonious. I am very fond of Tennyson. He makes me thrill sometimes to the end of my fingers, as only a true great poet can.

You praise me kindly, and if, indeed, the considerations you speak of could be true of me, I am not one who could lament having 'learnt in suffering what I taught in song.' In any case, working for the future and counting gladly on those who are likely to consider any work of mine acceptable to themselves, I shall be very sure not to forget my friends at Enfield.

Dear Mr. Westwood, I remain sincerely yours, ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

_To Mrs. Martin_ September 4, 1843. Finished September 5.

My dearest Mrs. Martin, ... I have had a great gratification within this week or two in receiving a letter--nay, two letters--from Miss Martineau, one of the last strangers in the world from whom I had any right to expect a kindness. Yet most kind, most touching in kindness, were both of these letters, so much so that I was not far from crying for pleasure as I read them. She is very hopelessly ill, you are probably aware, at Tynemouth in Northumberland, suffering agonies from internal cancer, and conquering occasional repose by the strength of opium, but 'almost forgetting' (to use her own words) 'to wish for health, in the intense enjoyment of pleasures independent of the body.' She sent me a little work of hers called 'Traditions of Palestine.' Her friends had hoped by the stationary character of some symptoms that the disease was suspended, but lately it is said to be gaining ground, and the serenity and elevation of her mind are more and more triumphantly evident as the bodily pangs thicken....

And now I am going to tell you what will surprise you, if you do not know it already. Stormie and Georgie are pa.s.sing George's vacation on the Rhine. You are certainly surprised if you did not know it. Papa signed and sealed them away on the ground of its being good and refreshing for both of them, and I was even mixed up a little with the diplomacy of it, until I found _they were going_, and then it was a hard, terrible struggle with me to be calm and see them go. But _that_ was childish, and when I had heard from them at Ostend I grew more satisfied again, and attained to think less of the fatal influences of _my star_. They went away in great spirits, Stormie 'quite elated,' to use his own words, and then at the end of the six weeks they _must_ be at home at Sessions; and no possible way of pa.s.sing the interim could be pleasanter and better and more exhilarating for themselves. The plan was to go from Ostend by railroad to Brussels and Cologne, then to pa.s.s down the Rhine to Switzerland, spend a few days at Geneva, and a week in Paris as they return. The only fear is that Stormie won't go to Paris. We have too many friends there--a strange obstacle.

Dearest Mrs. Martin, I am doing something more than writing you a letter, I think.

May G.o.d bless you all with the most enduring consolations! Give my love to Mr. Martin, and believe also, both of you, in my sympathy. I am glad that your poor f.a.n.n.y should be so supported. May G.o.d bless her and all of you!

Dearest Mrs. Martin's affectionate BA.

I am very well for _me_, and was out in the chair yesterday.