The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 22

With regard to blank verse, the great Fletcher admits sometimes seventeen syllables into his lines.

I hope Miss Heard received her copy, and that you will not think me arrogant in writing freely to you.

Believe me, I write only freely and not arrogantly; and I am impressed with the conviction that my work abounds with far more faults than you in your kindness will discover, notwithstanding your ac.u.men.

Always your affectionate and grateful ELIBET.

_To H.S. Boyd_ Wednesday, August 14, 1844 [postmark].

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--I must thank you for the great great pleasure with which I have this moment read your note, the more welcome, as (without hypocrisy) I had worked myself up into a nervous apprehension, from your former one, that I should seem so 'rudis atque incomposita' to you, in consequence of certain licences, as to end by being intolerable. I know what an ear you have, and how you can hear the dust on the wheel as it goes on. Well, I wrote to you yesterday, to beg you to be patient and considerate.

But you are always given to surprise me with abundant kindness--with supererogatory kindness. I believe in _that_, certainly.

I am very very glad that you think me stronger and more perspicuous.

For the perspicuity, I have struggled hard....

Your affectionate and grateful ELZBETH.

_To Mr. Westwood_ 50 Wimpole Street: August 22, 1844.

... Thank you for your welcome letter, so kind in its candour, _I_ angry that you should prefer 'The Seraphim'! Angry? No _indeed, indeed_, I am grateful for 'The Seraphim,' and not exacting for the 'Drama,' and all the more because of a secret obstinate persuasion that the 'Drama' will have a majority of friends in the end, and perhaps deserve to have them. Nay, why should I throw perhapses over my own impressions, and be insincere to you who have honoured me by being sincere? Why should I dissemble my own belief that the 'Drama'

is worth two or three 'Seraphims'--_my own_ belief, you know, which is worth nothing, writers knowing themselves so superficially, and having such a natural leaning to their last work. Still, I may say honestly to you, that I have a far more modest value for 'The Seraphim' than your kindness suggests, and that I have seemed to myself to have a clear insight into the fact that that poem was only borne up by the minor poems published with it, from immediate destruction. There is a want of unity in it which vexes me to think of, and the other faults magnify themselves day by day, more and more, in my eyes. Therefore it is not that I care _more_ for the 'Drama,' but I care less for 'The Seraphim.' Both poems fall short of my aspiration and desire, but the 'Drama' seems to me fuller, freer and stronger, and worth the other three times over. If it has anything new, I think it must be something new into which I have lived, for certainly I wrote it sincerely and from an inner impulse. In fact, I never wrote any poem with so much sense of pleasure in the composition, and so rapidly, with continuous flow--from fifty to a hundred lines a day, and quite in a glow of pleasure and impulse all through. Still, you have not been used to see me in blank verse, and there may be something in that. That the poem is full of faults and imperfections I do not in the least doubt. I have vibrated between exultations and despondencies in the correcting and printing of it, though the composition went smoothly to an end, and I am prepared to receive the bastinado to the critical degree, I do a.s.sure you. The few opinions I have yet had are all to the effect that my advance on the former publication is very great and obvious, but then I am aware that people who thought exactly the contrary would be naturally backward in giving me their opinion.... Indeed, I thank you most earnestly. Truth and kindness, how rarely do they come together! I am very grateful to you. It is curious that 'd.u.c.h.ess May'

is not a favorite of mine, and that I have sighed one or two secret wishes towards its extirpation, but other writers besides yourself have singled it out for praise in private letters to me. There has been no printed review yet, I believe; and when I think of them, I try to think of something else, for with no private friends among the critical body (not that I should desire to owe security in such a matter to private friendship) it is awful enough, this looking forward to be reviewed. Never mind, the ultimate prosperity of the book lies far above the critics, and can neither be mended nor made nor unmade by _them_.

_To John Kenyan_ Wednesday morning [August 1844].

I return Mr. Chorley's[106] note, my dear cousin, with thankful thoughts of him--as of you. I wish I could persuade you of the rightness of my view about 'Essays on Mind' and such things, and how the difference between them and my present poems is not merely the difference between two schools, as you seemed to intimate yesterday, nor even the difference between immaturity and maturity; but that it is the difference between the dead and the living, between a copy and an individuality, between what is myself and what is not myself. To you who have a personal interest and--may I say? affection for me, the girl's exercise a.s.sumes a fact.i.tious value, but to the public the matter is otherwise and ought to be otherwise. And for the 'psychological' side of the question, _do_ observe that I have not reputation enough to suggest a curiosity about _my legends_. Instead of your 'legendary lore,' it would be just a legendary bore. Now you understand what I mean. I do not underrate Pope nor his school, but I _do_ disesteem everything which, bearing the shape of a book, is not the true expression of a mind, and I know and feel (and so do _you_) that a girl's exercise written when all the experience lay in books, and the mind was suited rather for intelligence than production, lying like an infant's face with an undeveloped expression, must be valueless in itself, and if offered to the public directly or indirectly as a work of mine, highly injurious to me. Why, of the 'Prometheus' volume, even, you know what I think and desire. 'The Seraphim,' with all its feebleness and shortcomings and obscurities, yet is the first utterance of my own individuality, and therefore the only volume except the last which is not a disadvantage to me to have thought of, and happily for me, the early books, never having been advertised, nor reviewed, except by accident, once or twice, are as safe from the public as ma.n.u.script.

Oh, I shudder to think of the lines which might have been 'nicked in,'

and all through Mr. Chorley's good nature. As if I had not sins enough to ruin me in the new poems, without reviving juvenile ones, sinned when I knew no better. Perhaps you would like to have the series of epic poems which I wrote from nine years old to eleven. They might ill.u.s.trate some doctrine of innate ideas, and enrich (to that end) the myths of metaphysicians.

And also agree with me in reverencing that wonderful genius _Keats_, who, rising as a grand exception from among the vulgar herd of juvenile versifiers, was an individual _man_ from the beginning, and spoke with his own voice, though surrounded by the yet unfamiliar murmur of antique echoes.[107] Leigh Hunt calls him 'the young poet'

very rightly. Most affectionately and gratefully yours,

E.B.B.

Do thank Mr. Chorley for me, will you?

[Footnote 106: Henry Fothergill Chorley (1808-1872) was one of the princ.i.p.al members of the staff of the _Athenaeum_, especially in literary and musical matters. Dr. Garnett (in the _Dictionary of National Biography_) says of him, shortly after his first joining the staff in 1833, that 'his articles largely contributed to maintain the reputation the _Athenaeum_ had already acquired for impartiality at a time when puffery was more rampant than ever before or since, and when the only other London literary journal of any pretension was notoriously venal.' He also wrote several novels and dramas, which met with but little popular success.]

[Footnote 107: Compare Aurora Leigh's a.s.severation:

'By Keats' soul, the man who never stepped In gradual progress like another man, But, turning grandly on his central self, Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years And died, _not_ young.'

('Aurora Leigh,' book i.; _Poetical Works_, vi. 38.)]

_To Mrs. Martin_ Thursday, August 1844.

Thank you, my dearest Mrs. Martin, for your most kind letter, a reply to which should certainly, as you desired, have met you at Colwall; only, right or wrong, I have been flurried, agitated, put out of the way altogether, by Stormie's and Henry's plan of going to Egypt. Ah, now you are surprised. Now you think me excusable for being silent two days beyond my time--yes, and _they have gone_, it is no vague speculation. You know, or perhaps you don't know, that, a little time back, papa bought a ship, put a captain and crew of his own in it, and began to employ it in his favourite 'Via Lactea' of speculations. It has been once to Odessa with wool, I think; and now it has gone to Alexandria with coals. Stormie was wild to go to both places; and with regard to the last, papa has yielded. And Henry goes too. This was all arranged weeks ago, but nothing was said of it until last Monday to me; and when I heard it, I was a good deal moved of course, and although resigned now to their having their way in it, and their _pleasure_, which is better than their way, still I feel I have entered a new anxiety, and shall not be quite at ease again till they return....

And now to thank you, my ever-dearest Mrs. Martin, for your kind and welcome letter from the Lakes. I knew quite at the first page, and long before you said a word specifically, that dear Mr. Martin was better, and think that such a scene, even from under an umbrella, must have done good to the soul and body of both of you. I wish I could have looked through your eyes for once. But I suppose that neither through yours, nor through my own, am I ever likely to behold that sight. In the meantime it is with considerable satisfaction that I hear of your _failure of Wordsworth_, which was my salvation in a very awful sense. Why, if you had done such a thing, you would have put me to the shame of too much honor. The speculation consoles me entirely for your loss in respect to Rydal Hall and its poet. By the way, I heard the other day that Rogers, who was intending to visit him, said, 'It is a bad time of year for it. The G.o.d is on his pedestal; and can only give gestures to his worshippers, and no conversation to his friends.' ...

Although you did not find a letter from me on your return to Colwall, I do hope that you found _me_--viz. my book, which Mr. Burden took charge of, and promised to deliver or see delivered. When you have read it, _do_ let me hear your own and Mr. Martin's true impression; and whether you think it worse or better than 'The Seraphim.' The only review which has yet appeared or had time to appear has been a very kind and cordial one in the 'Athenaeum.' ...

Your ever affectionate BA.

_To Mr. Westwood_ August 31, 1844.

My dear Mr. Westwood,--I send you the ma.n.u.script you ask for, and also my certificate that, although I certainly was once a little girl, yet I never in my life had fair hair, or received lessons when you mention. I think a cousin of mine, now dead, may have done it. The 'Barrett Barrett' seems to specify my family. I have a little cousin with bright fair hair at this moment who is an Elizabeth Barrett (the subject of my 'Portrait'[108]), but then she is a 'Georgiana' besides, and your friend must refer to times past. My hair is very dark indeed, and always was, as long as I remember, and also I have a friend who makes serious affidavit that I have never changed (except by being rather taller) since I was a year old. Altogether, you cannot make a case of ident.i.ty out, and I am forced to give up the glory of being so long remembered for my cleverness.

You do wrong in supposing me inclined to underrate Mr. Melville's power. He is inclined to High-Churchism, and to such doctrines as apostolical succession, and I, who, am a Dissenter, and a believer in a universal Christianity, recoil from the exclusive doctrine.

But then, that is not depreciatory of his power and eloquence--surely not.

E.B.

[Footnote 108: _Poetical Works_, iii. 172.]

_To Mr. Chorley_ 50 Wimpole Street: Monday.

[About the end of August 1844.]

Dear Mr. Chorley,--Kindnesses are more frequent things with me than gladnesses, but I thank you earnestly for both in the letter I have this moment received.[109] You have given me a quick sudden pleasure which goes deeper (I am very sure) than self-love, for it must be something better than vanity that brings the tears so near the eyes. I thank you, dear Mr. Chorley.

After all, we are not quite strangers. I have had some early encouragement and direction from you, and much earlier (and later) literary pleasures from such of your writings as did not refer to me.

I have studied 'Music and Manners'[110] under you, and found an excuse for my love of romance-reading from your grateful fancy. Then, as dear Miss Mitford's friend, you could not help being (however against your will!) a little my acquaintance; and this she daringly promised to make you in reality some day, till I took the fervour for prophecy.

Altogether I am justified, while I thank you as a stranger, to say one more word as a friend, and _that_ shall be the best word--'_May G.o.d bless you_!' The trials with which He tries us all are different, but our faces may be turned towards the end in cheerfulness, for '_to_ the end He has loved us.' I remain,

Very faithfully, your obliged ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

You may trust me with the secret of your kindness to me. It shall not go farther.

[Footnote 109: A summary of its contents is given in the next letter but one.]

[Footnote 110: _Music and Manners in France and Germany: a Series of Travelling Sketches of Art and Society_, published by Mr. Chorley in 1841.]

_To H.S. Boyd_ Monday, September 1, 1844.

My dearest Mr. Boyd,--I thank you for the Cyprus, and also for a still sweeter amreeta--your praise. Certainly to be praised as you praise me might well be supposed likely to turn a sager head than mine, but I feel that (with all my sensitive and grateful appreciation of such words) I am removed rather below than above the ordinary temptations of vanity. Poetry is to me rather a pa.s.sion than an ambition, and the gadfly which drives me along that road p.r.i.c.ks deeper than an expectation of fame could do.

Moreover, there will be plenty of counter-irritation to prevent me from growing feverish under your praises. And as a beginning, I hear that the 'John Bull' newspaper has cut me up with sanguinary gashes, for the edification of its Sabbath readers. I have not seen it yet, but I hear so. The 'Drama' is the particular victim. Do not send for the paper. I will let you have it, if you should wish for it.