Correspondence

1066.  EBB to Benjamin Robert Haydon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 185–186.

[London]

Nov. 29 1842

My dear Mr Haydon,

I wish I cd hear your Lectures [1] —but I can only read your letters & thank you for them heartily––& for the hope of Curtius! [2] How kind to me you are! Shall you print the Lectures—so that I may read them? [3]

Yes! The permission of Evil is a mystery—and all that argument & egotism of men have done to make it clear, have simply left it more mysterious. I never however, I thank God for it, doubted of the power of God—I never do. God could (be sure) breathe aside this Evil, as the least cloud from a summer sky. His power cd annihilate it. His wisdom leaves it. But it is we who cannot comprehend His wisdom.

Of the permission of Evil, I have sometimes thought painfully, as others have: and my idea, my fancy is, that it was necessary in order to the communication to a finite nature of the consciousness of good. An infinite Being like the Creator, sees the essential & the abstract object; but we who are finite understand nothing except by comparison & contrast. Referring to our daily experience we may observe, that we discern nothing in the external world except by the help of two colours. [4] If there were no color but one shade of green, .. whatever might be the variety of form, we should see only one great green flat—no line, no angle, no difference between hill & valley or Heaven & earth. And this being so in the material, it is also so in the spiritual. Adam in his first day’s joy, was good & happy, undiscerningly, unconsciously: his goodness was his life, & not his choice & preference & glory. He knew nothing of his good. He was blind & deaf to it. The knowledge of it came with the knowledge of Evil—& was the fruit of the same tree. After all, what is evil? Do we know more of that, than of its origin?

What is evil? Sin—and a blank! Presently & in another state of being, what we have called evil here, may shine out to us as good & blessing,—& what we have delighted in as good, may fall from the appellation. Then at least we shall comprehend the unity & harmony of all these apparent discords!—and then, standing farther from the picture which now we touch with our eyelashes, we shall lose sight of these roughness<es &> uneven[n]esses, & acknowledge the beauty of the work, & the power & consistent skill of the Artist. May it be so to you dear Mr Haydon, fully & joyfully! In the meantime there is noble work for you to do.

Poor Dr Mitford remains in much the same state.

Ever sincerely yours

Elizabeth B Barrett

Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 12–14.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Haydon’s diary entry for 24 November 1842 read: “Lectured tonight—second time this year, at London Institution—to a brilliant Audience” (Pope, V, 226).

2. See letter 1045 for an earlier reference to this work.

3. The first volume of Haydon’s Lectures on Painting and Design was published in 1844, the second in 1846.

4. EBB reiterated this thought in a letter to Horne of 13 December 1843.

___________________

National Endowment for the Humanities - Logo

Editorial work on The Brownings’ Correspondence is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This website was last updated on 3-28-2024.

Copyright © 2024 Wedgestone Press. All rights reserved.

Back To Top