The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 5

Our love to Annie.

Won't you send your new poem to Mr. Barker, to the care of Mr. Valpy, with your Christmas benedictions?

[Footnote 31: As a matter of fact, 'The Seraphim' was not printed in the _New Monthly_, being probably thought too long.]

_To Mrs. Martin_.

[74 Gloucester Place:] January 23, 1837 [postmark].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am standing in Henrietta's place, she says--but not, _I_ say, to answer your letter to _her_ yesterday, but your letter to _me_, some weeks ago--which I meant to answer much more immediately if the _ignis fatuus_ of a house (you see to what a miserable fatuity I am reduced, of applying your pure country metaphors to our brick pollutions) had not been gliding just before us, and I had not much wished to be able to tell you of our settlement. As it is, however, I must write, and shall keep a solemn silence on the solemn subject of our shifting plans....

No! I was not at all disappointed in Wordsworth, although perhaps I should not have singled him from the mult.i.tude as a great man. There is a _reserve_ even in his countenance, which does not lighten as Landor's does, whom I saw the same evening. His eyes have more meekness than brilliancy; and in his slow even articulation there is rather the solemnity and calmness of _truth_ itself, than the animation and energy of those who seek for it. As to my being quite at my ease when I spoke to him, why how could you ask such a question? I trembled both in my soul and body. But he was very kind, and sate near me and talked to me as long as he was in the room--and recited a translation by Cary of a sonnet of Dante's--and altogether, it was quite a dream! Landor too--Walter Savage Landor ... in whose hands the ashes of antiquity burn again--gave me two Greek epigrams he had lately written ... and talked brilliantly and prominently until Bro (he and I went together) abused him for _ambitious_ singularity and affectation. But it was very interesting. And dear Miss Mitford too!

and Mr. Raymond, a great Hebraist and the ancient author of 'A Cure for a Heartache!' I never walked in the skies before; and perhaps never shall again, when so many stars are out! I shall at least see dear Miss Mitford, who wrote to me not long ago to say that she would soon be in London with 'Otto,' her new tragedy, which was written at Mr. Forrest's own request, he in the most flattering manner having applied to her a stranger, as the auth.o.r.ess of 'Rienzi,' for a dramatic work worthy of his acting--after rejecting many plays offered to him, and among them Mr. Knowles's.... She says that her play will be quite opposed, in its execution, to 'Ion,' as unlike it 'as a ruined castle overhanging the Rhine, to a Grecian temple.' And I do not doubt that it will be full of ability; although my own opinion is that she stands higher as the auth.o.r.ess of 'Our Village' than of 'Rienzi,' and writes prose better than poetry, and transcends rather in Dutch minuteness and high finishing, than in Italian ideality and pa.s.sion. I think besides that Mr. Forrest's rejection of any play of Sheridan Knowles must refer rather to its unfitness for the development of his own personal talent, than to its abstract demerit, whatever Transatlantic tastes he may bring with him. The published t.i.tle of the last play is 'The Daughter,' not 'The Wreckers,' although I believe it was acted as the last. I am very anxious to read 'Otto,'

not to _see_ it. I am not going to see it, notwithstanding an offered temptation to sit in the auth.o.r.ess's own box. With regard to 'Ion,'

I think it is a beautiful work, but beautiful _rather_ morally than intellectually. Is this right or not? Its moral tone is very n.o.ble, and sends a grand and touching harmony into the midst of the full discord of this utilitarian age. As dramatic _poetry_, it seems to me to want, not beauty, but power, pa.s.sion, and condensation. This is my _doxy_ about 'Ion.' Its author[32] made me very proud by sending it to me, although we do not know him personally. I have _heard_ that he is a most amiable man (who else could have written 'Ion'?), but that he was a little _elevated_ by his popularity last year!...

I have read Combe's 'Phrenology,' but not the 'Const.i.tution of Man.'

The 'Phrenology' is very clever, and amusing; but I do not think it logical or satisfactory. I forget whether 'slowness of the pulse' _is_ mentioned in it as a symptom of the poetical aestus. I am afraid, if it be a symptom, I dare not take my place even in the 'forlorn hope of poets' in this age so forlorn as to its poetry; for my pulse is in a continual flutter and my feet not half cold enough for a pedestal--so I must make my honours over to poor papa straightway. He has been shivering and shuddering through the cold weather; and partaking our influenza in the warmer. I am very sorry that you should have been a sufferer too. It seems to have been a universal pestilence, even down in Devonshire, where dear b.u.mmy and the whole colony have had their share of 'groans.' And one of my doves shook its pretty head and ruffled its feathers and shut its eyes, and became subject to pap and nursing and other infirmities for two or three days, until I was in great consternation for the result. But it is well again--cooing as usual; and so indeed we all are. But indeed, I can't write a sentence more without saying some of the evil it deserves--of the utilitarianisms of this corrupt age--among some of the chief of which are steel pens!

I am so glad that you liked my 'Romaunt,' and so resigned that you did not understand some of my 'Poet's Vow,' and so obliged that you should care to go on reading what I write. They vouchsafed to publish in the first number of the new series of the 'New Monthly' a little poem of mine called 'The Island,'[33] but so incorrectly that I was glad at the additional oblivion of my signature. If you see it, pray alter the last senseless line of the first page into 'Leaf sounds with water, in your ear,' and put 'amreeta' instead of 'amneta' on the second page; and strike out '_of_' in the line which names Aeschylus! There are other blunders, [but] these are intolerable, and cast me out of my 'contentment' for some time. I have begged for [proof] sheets in future; and as none have come for the ensuing month, I suppose I shall have nothing in the next number. They have a lyrical dramatic poem of mine, 'The Two Seraphim,' which, whenever it appears, I shall like to have your opinion of. As to the incomprehensible line in the 'Poet's Vow' of which you asked me the meaning, 'One making one in strong compa.s.s,' I meant to express how that oneness of G.o.d, 'in whom are all things,' produces a oneness or sympathy (sympathy being the tendency of many to become one) in all things. Do you understand? or is the explanation to be explained? The unity of G.o.d preserves a unity in men--that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man--which sympathy we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs. I believe the subject itself involves the necessity of some mysticism; but I must make no excuses. I am afraid that my very Seraphim will not be thought to stand in a very clear light, even at heaven's gate. But this is much _asay_ about nothing ...

The Bishop of Exeter is staying and preaching at Torquay. Do you not envy them all for making part of his congregation? I am sure I do _as much_. I envy you your before-breakfast activity. I am never a _complete man_ without my breakfast--it seems to be some integral part of my soul. _You_ 'read all O'Connell's speeches.' I never read any of them--unless they take me by surprise. I keep my devotion for _unpaid_ patriots; but Miss Mitford is another devotee of Mr. O'Connell ...

Dearest Mrs. Martin's affectionate E.B. BARRETT.

Thank you for the 'Ba' in Henrietta's letter. If you knew how many people, whom I have known only within this year or two, whether I like them or not, say 'Ba, Ba,' quite naturally and pastorally, you would not come to me with the detestable 'Miss B.'

[Footnote 32: Serjeant Talfourd.]

[Footnote 33: _Poetical Works_, ii. 248.]

_To Mrs. Martin_ London: August 16, 1837.

My dear Mrs. Martin,--It seems a long long time since we had any intercourse; and the answer to your last pleasant letter to Henrietta _must_ go to you from me. We have heard of you that you don't mean to return to England before the spring--which news proved me a prophet, and disappointed me at the same time, for one can't enjoy even a prophecy in this world without something vexing. Indeed, I do long to see you again, dearest Mrs. Martin, and should always have the same pleasure in it, and affection for you, if my friends and acquaintances were as much multiplied as you _wrongly_ suppose them to be. But the truth is that I have almost none at all, in this place; and, except our relative Mr. Kenyon, not one literary in any sense. Dear Miss Mitford, one of the very kindest of human beings, lies buried in geraniums, thirty miles away. I could not conceive what Henrietta had been telling you, or what you meant, for a long time--until we conjectured that it must have been something about Lady Dacre, who kindly sent me her book, and intimated that she would be glad to receive me at her conversations--and you know me better than to doubt whether I would go or not. There was an equal unworthiness and unwillingness towards the honor of it. Indeed, dearest Mrs. Martin, it is almost surprising how we contrive to be as dull in London as in Devonshire--perhaps more so, for the sight of a mult.i.tude induces a sense of seclusion which one has not without it; and, besides, there were at Sidmouth many more known faces and listened-to voices than we see and hear in this place. No house yet! And you will scarcely have patience to read that papa has seen and likes another house in Devonshire Place, and that he _may_ take it, and we _may_ be settled in it, before the year closes. I myself think of the whole business indifferently. My thoughts have turned so long on the subject of houses, that the pivot is broken--and now they won't turn any more.

All that remains is, a sort of consciousness, that we should be more comfortable in a house with cleaner carpets, and taken for rather longer than a week at a time. Perhaps, after all, we are quite as well _sur le tapis_ as it is. It is a thousand to one but that the feeling of four red London walls closing around us for seven, eleven, or twenty-five years, would be a harsh and hard one, and make us cry wistfully to 'get out.' I am sure you will look up to your mountains, and down to your lakes, and enter into this conjecture.

Talking of mountains and lakes is itself a trying thing to us poor prisoners. Papa has talked several times of taking us into the country for two months this summer, and we have dreamt of it a hundred times in addition; but, after all, we are not likely to go I dare say. It would have been very delightful--and who knows what may take place next summer? We may not absolutely _die_, without seeing a tree.

Henrietta has seen a great many. You will have heard, I dare say, of the enjoyment she had in her week at Camden House. She seems to have walked from seven in the morning to seven at night; and was quite delighted with the kindness within doors and the sunshine without. I a.s.sure you that, fresh as she was from the air and dew, she saluted us amidst the sentiment of our sisterly meeting just in this way--it was almost her first exclamation--'What a very disagreeable smell there is here!' And this, although she had brought geraniums enough from Camden to perfume the Haymarket!...

I am happy to announce to you that a new little dove has appeared from a sh.e.l.l--over which n.o.body had prognosticated good--on August 16, 1837. I and the senior doves appear equally delighted, and we all three, in the capacity of good sitters and indefatigable pullers-about, take a good deal of credit upon ourselves....

Arabel has begun oil painting, and without a master--and you can't think how much effect and expression she has given to several of her own sketches, notwithstanding all difficulties. Poor Henrietta is without a piano, and is not to have one again _until we have another house_! This is something like 'when Homer and Virgil are forgotten.'

_Speaking of Homer and Virgil_, I have been writing a 'Romance of the Ganges,'[34] in order to ill.u.s.trate an engraving in the new annual to be edited by Miss Mitford, Finden's tableaux for 1838. It does not sound a _very_ Homeric undertaking--I confess I don't hold any kind of annual, gild it as you please, in too much honour and awe--but from my wish to please her, and from the necessity of its being done in a certain time, I was 'quite frightful,' as poor old Cooke used to say, in order to express his own nervousness. But she was quite pleased--she is very soon pleased--and the ballad, gone the way of all writing, now-a-days, to the press. I do wish I could send you some kind of news that would interest you; but you see scarcely any except all this selfishness is in my beat. Dearest Bro draws and reads German, and I fear is dull notwithstanding. But we are every one of us more reconciled to London than we were. Well! I must not write any more. Whenever you think of me, dearest Mrs. Martin, remember how deeply and unchangeably I must regard you--both with my _mind_, my _affections_, and that part of either, called my grat.i.tude. BA.

Henrietta's kindest love and thanks for your letter. She desires me to say that she and Bro are going to dine with Mrs. Robert Martin to-morrow. I must tell you that Georgie and I went to hear Dr.

Chalmers preach, three Sundays ago. His sermon was on a text whose extreme beauty would diffuse itself into any sermon preached upon it--G.o.d is love. His eloquence was very great, and his views n.o.ble and grasping. I expected much from his imagination, but not so much from his knowledge. It was truer to Scripture than I was prepared for, although there seemed to me some _want_ on the subject of the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart, which work we cannot dwell upon too emphatically. 'He worketh in us to will and to do,' and yet we are apt to will and do without a transmission of the praise to Him. May G.o.d bless you.

[Footnote 34: _Poetical Works_, ii. 83.]

_To Miss Commeline_ London: August 19, 1837.

My dear Miss Commeline,--I could not hear of your being in affliction without very frequent thoughts of you and a desire to express some of them in this way, and although so much time has pa.s.sed I do hope that you will believe in the sympathy with which I, or rather _we_, have thought of you, and in the regard we shall not cease to feel for you even if we meet no more in this world. It is blessed to know both for ourselves and for each other that while there is a darkness that _must_ come to all, there is a light which _may_; and may He who is the light in the dark place be with you [now] and always, causing you to feel rather the glory that is in Him than the shadow which is in all beside--that so the sweetness of the consolation may pa.s.s the bitterness of even grief. Do give my love to Mrs. Commeline and to your sisters, and believe me, all of you, that the friends who have gone from your neighbourhood have not gone from my old remembrance, either of your kindness to them, or of their own feelings of interest in you.

Trusting to such old remembrances, I will believe that you care to know what we are doing and how we are settling--that word which has now been on our lips for years, which it is marvellous to think how it got upon human lips at all. We came from Sidmouth to try London and ourselves, and see whether or not we could live together; and after more than a year and a half close contact with smoke we find no very good excuse for not remaining in it; and papa is going on with his eternal hunt for houses--the wild huntsman in the ballad is nothing to him, all except the sublimity--intending very seriously to take the first he can. He is now about one in particular, but I won't tell where it is because we have considered so many houses in particular that our considerations have come to be a jest in general. I shall be heartily glad, at least I _think_ so, for it is possible that the reality of being bricked up for a lease time may not be very agreeable. I think I shall be heartily glad when a house is taken, and we have made it look like our own with our furniture and pictures and books. I am so anxious to see my old books. I believe I shall begin at the beginning and read every story book through in the joy of meeting, and shall be as sedentary as ever I was in my own arm-chair. I remember when I was a child spreading my vitality, not over trees and flowers (I do that still--I still believe they have a certain animal susceptibility to pleasure and pain; 'it is my creed,' and, being Wordsworth's besides, I am not ashamed of it), but over chairs and tables and books in particular, and being used to fancy a kind of love in them to suit my love to them. And so if I were a child I should have an intense pity for my poor folios, quartos, and duodecimos, to say nothing of the arm-chair, shut up all these weeks and months in boxes, without a rational eye to look upon them. Pray forgive me if I have written a great deal of nonsense--'Je m'en doute.'

Henrietta has spent a fortnight at Chislehurst with the Martins, and was very joyous there, and came back to us with that happy triumphant air which I always fancy people 'just from the country' put on towards us hapless Londoners.

But you must not think I am a discontented person and grumble all day long at being in London. _There are many advantages here_, as I say to myself whenever it is particularly disagreeable; and if we can't see even a leaf or a sparrow without soot on it, there are the parrots at the Zoological Gardens and the pictures at the Royal Academy; and real live poets above all, with their heads full of the trees and birds and sunshine of paradise. I have stood face to face with Wordsworth and Landor; and Miss Mitford, who is in herself what she is in her books, has become a dear friend of mine, but a distant one. She visits London at long intervals, and lives thirty miles away....

Bro and I were studying German together all last summer with Henry, before he left us to become a German, and I believe this is the last of my languages, for I have begun absolutely to detest the sight of a dictionary or grammar, which I never liked except as a means, and love poetry with an intenser love, if that be possible, than I ever did.

Not that Greek is not as dear to me as ever, but I write more than I read, even of Greek poetry, and am resolute to work whatever little faculty I have, clear of imitations and conventionalisms which cloud and weaken more poetry (particularly now-a-days) than would be believed possible without looking into it....

As to society in London, I a.s.sure you that none of us have much, and that as for me, you would wonder at seeing how possible it is to live as secludedly in the midst of a mult.i.tude as in the centre of solitude. My doves are my chief acquaintances, and I am so very intimate with _them_ that they accept and even demand my a.s.sistance in building their innumerable nests. Do tell me if there is any hope of seeing any of you in London at any time. I say 'do tell me,' for I will venture to ask you, dear Miss Commeline, to write me a few lines in one of the idlest hours of one of your idlest days just to tell me a little about you, and whether Mrs. Commeline is tolerably well. Pray believe me under all circ.u.mstances,

Yours sincerely and affectionately, E.B. BARRETT.

The spring of 1838 was marked by two events of interest to Miss Barrett and her family. In the first place, Mr. Barrett's apparently interminable search for a house ended in his selection of 50 Wimpole Street, which continued to be his home for the rest of his life, and which is, consequently, more than any other house in London, to be a.s.sociated with his daughter's memory. The second event was the publication of 'The Seraphim, and other Poems,' which was Miss Barrett's first serious appearance before the public, and in her own name, as a poet. The early letters of this year refer to the preparation of this volume, as well as to the auth.o.r.ess's health, which was at this time in a very serious condition, owing to the breaking of a blood-vessel. Indeed, from this time until her marriage in 1846 she held her life on the frailest of tenures, and lived in all respects the life of an invalid.

_To H.S. Boyd_ Monday morning, March 27, 1838 [postmark].

My dear Friend,--I do hope that you may not be very angry, but papa thinks--and, indeed, I think--that as I have already _had_ two proof sheets and forty-eight pages, and the printers have gone on to the rest of the poem, it would not be very welcome to them if we were to ask them to retrace their steps. Besides, I would rather--_I_ for myself, _I_--that you had the whole poem at once and clearly printed before you, to insure as many chances as possible of your liking it.

I am _promised_ to see the volume completed in three weeks from this time, so that the dreadful moment of your reading it--I mean the 'Seraphim' part of it--cannot be far off, and perhaps, the season being a good deal advanced even now, you might not, on consideration, wish me to r.e.t.a.r.d the appearance of the book, except for some very sufficient reason. I feel very nervous about it--far more than I did when my 'Prometheus' crept out [of] the Greek, or I myself out of the sh.e.l.l, in the first 'Essay on Mind.' Perhaps this is owing to Dr.

Chambers's medicines, or perhaps to a consciousness that my present attempt _is_ actually, and will be considered by others, more a trial of strength than either of my preceding ones.

Thank you for the books, and especially for the _editio rarissima_, which I should as soon have thought of your trusting to me as of your admitting me to stand with gloves on within a yard of Baxter. This extraordinary confidence shall not be abused.

I thank you besides for your kind inquiries about my health. Dr.

Chambers did not think me worse yesterday, notwithstanding the last cold days, which have occasioned some uncomfortable sensations, and he still thinks I shall be better in the summer season. In the meantime he has ordered me to take ice--out of sympathy with nature, I suppose; and not to speak a word, out of contradiction to my particular, human, feminine nature.

Whereupon I revenge myself, you see, by talking all this nonsense upon paper, and making you the victim.

To propitiate you, let me tell you that your commands have been performed to the letter, and that one Greek motto (from 'Orpheus') is given to the first part of 'The Seraphim,' and another from _Chrysostom_ to the second.

Henrietta desires me to say that she means to go to see you very soon.

Give my very kind remembrance to Miss Holmes, and believe me,

Your affectionate friend, E.B. BARRETT.

I saw Mr. Kenyon yesterday. He has a book just coming out.[35] I should like you to read it. If you would, you would thank me for saying so.

[Footnote 35: _Poems, for the most part occasional_, by John Kenyon.]

_To John Kenyon_[36]

[1838.]