1161. EBB to Benjamin Robert Haydon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 339–340.
[London]
[25 February 1843] [1]
<***> a writer, is of the nature of a personal interest: and I have heard from herself that some four hundred & fifty pounds were collected for her during the first four days of the public appeal. As to her coming to London, although you say ‘no’, I should say ‘yea’,—because I am selfish & have flattered myself into fancying that she might live here almost as cheaply, & in certain respects, social respects, more pleasantly. But her wishes are against it—and I am not so selfish as to struggle against the natural flow of them. For my own part, I pretend to be a poet—yet I like London. Chaucer said “Thys London, whyche is to mee so dere and swete” [2] —& I can almost say it after him. I like to feel myself near to the great Heart, the “mighty Heart” [3] of the thinking people—to breathe this air full of consecrations from the Dead & Living—and (not least) to have my green bag of new books regularly from the libraries. Otherwise you know, I might as well be in a wilderness—or a hermitage—or a convent—or a prison—as in this dark room, dark & silent, & from which the most extensive prospect presents a “prodigious grasp” [4] … of chimney pots!–
Mr Kenyon told me that he shd take advantage of your kind offer about admitting him to the frescos– They are prospering I hope! You are superior to East winds, & your “Dæmon” is strong–
Which winds have shaken me of late—but I am writing,—altho’ not a poem of any great length.
Are you aware that the sonnet upon your picture of Wordsworth is in the American papers? [5] I must tell you of it.
Gratefully yours & truly
Elizabeth B Barrett.
There is a sketch of Anchises & Venus which suggests a most beautiful picture– Do tell me if you have painted it– [6] It is a comfort, .. in the impertinence of the Athenæum today, .. that it admits the genius of Curtius, & the fineness of the worked out contrast of the animal terror & human devotedness– [7] And this (by proving that impertinent people may sometimes be right) encourages me to ask you why you called the Duke of Wellington’s picture ‘C’est lui’? [8] You who are so English, why shd you not talk English? Was there a reason for the French?– [9]
EBB
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 36–38.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to the article in The Athenæum.
2. See letter 974, note 4.
3. Wordsworth, “Sonnet Composed on Westminster Bridge” (1807), line 14.
4. We have not located the source of this quotation.
5. EBB’s sonnet was reprinted in The New-York Daily Tribune of 26 November 1842 and in The New-York Weekly Tribune of 3 December 1842.
6. Anchises was so beautiful that Venus descended to earth and bore him a son, Æneas, whose exploits were recounted in Vergil’s Æneid. Haydon’s “Venus Appearing to Anchises” was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826.
7. The Athenæum of 25 February, in a review of the British Institution’s exhibition, said: “Mr. Haydon’s ‘dæmon,’ we fear, is rarely under due control. There is hardly a visitor to the gallery, who will not smile at the huge Curtius (384). Yet there is genius in the picture: though the attitude of the horse resemble the coiling of an heraldic wyvern rather than the plunging of a steed, though the man wears on his brow the look of true opera heroism—and though the gulph be far more like the lonely rift of some desert moor, than the one which yawned in the Forum …” The reviewer also criticized “the harsh tones and glaring contrasts” of the painting (no. 800, p. 195).
8. “It is he.” This painting was included in the British Institution’s 1843 exhibition. The article in The Athenæum asked: “who could imagine that these two French words designate the portrait of the Duke of Wellington? or rather of the Duke’s back?”
9. See the following letter for Haydon’s reply to this.
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