1562. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 243–246.
[London]
March 5. 1844
My dear Mr Horne, It has been haunting me all the morning, that you may be drawing the very last inference I shd wish you to draw, from my silence. But I have been so unwell that I cd not even read: & the writing has been impossible—and people cry out even now, “Why, surely you are not going to write.”
I must write. It is on my mind; & must be off it.
First to thank you for the book .. which it was such unnecessary kindness for you to send,—and then, for the abundant kindness in another way, which will, at the earliest thought, occur to you. My only objection to the paper is, that the personal kindness is too evident, .. so evident indeed as to be obvious to the most obtuse reader, .. & to throw it out of the line of fair criticism altogether, even if the treatment of the poetical question had been as individual as you at first intended. The objection, you will see, leaves me full of gratitude to you; & fills to the brim that Venetian goblet of former obligations, which never held any poison.
You are guilty of certain exaggerations, however, in speaking of me,—against which I shall oppose my D as you allow me. [1] For instance, I have not been “shut up in one room for six or seven years”—four or five wd be nearer; & then, except on one occasion, I have not been for “several weeks together in the dark,” during the course of them. And then there is not a single “elegant latin verse” extant from my hand. I never cultivated Latin verses. [2] And then (last & greatest) Miss Martineau’s beautiful book was not [3] dedicated to me, whatever may be said or thought of it. I know that a current report attributed the honor to me– But there was no whisper of truth in the report,—and you must contradict it positively in the new edition. [4]
The leaves of the book I have turned over, & read here & there—but nothing regularly. When I have read it through & marked it, you shall have it back again.
And do not take any trouble, I entreat you about papers “interesting to me.” Since they are interesting to me, I may meddle about them, & I do beg you not to take any more trouble. If the kindest is the best, [5] there is nothing to alter. That is, .. nothing to add to in relation to myself; for there are some inaccuracies, as I explained to you––& not the least is in your opening allusion to the Quarterley Review article. Why you shd give that blow to poor Lady Emmeline, [6] I really cannot conceive. She writes nonsense often, taking it for inspiration, .. & her words carry away her thoughts, instead of vice versà—but the truth is that she has more imagination, more fire, more notion of what poetry is, than half the “ladies” graciously accepted by you. To raise Miss Lowe [7] for instance (who is an accomplished woman & full of acquirement, I believe,—but who certainly never wrote a line of poetry in her life) over the head of Lady Emmeline, who has a faculty, .. who has imagination, only is in fault through letting it run to seed,––is a very undeniable injustice to which I must call your attention. Also Caroline Southey shd have been mentioned with some distinction, & not in a row with these unknown names– She is a womanly Cowper .. with much of his sweetness & none of his strength—& there is much in her poems, to which the heart of the reader leans back in remembrance. The real offence, done by that article in the Quarterley, was the classification. As far as I am concerned at least, that was what I disliked. And probably Mrs Norton & Caroline Southey felt it still more dishonouring. Mrs Brooke, the Maria del Occidente, [8] has a faculty—but for all the rest, what was it worth. Lady Emmeline, the sacrificed “lady of rank”, is well worth all the rest together—& that is not praise.
But it is only astonishing that in a work of this nature, you shd not have made more slips, I am sure, than you have– How beautifully it is adorned, & “got up”. Oh—and the heads. Guess which head I prefer—Southwood Smith’s. The power, the serenity & sweetness of the whole expression, have exceedingly impressed me. Is Tennyson’s like? It is an intellectual head—but the eyes seem blanker than his shd be—& the lips want delicacy. Dickens has the dust & mud of humanity about him, notwithstanding those eagle eyes! [9]
And I have been so amused this morning, by the sight of a letter from your confidential friend Mr Reade,—which Miss Mitford sent me. He has seen, forsooth, your advertisement, with no name of his in it––but he is too sure of his position with posterity to care for that, now,—though, once, it wd have saddened him. He is quite aware now that all the notices are written by personal friends of the parties!!– You have indeed got one true poet, he sees .. “in spite of his little isms” .. (whom in the world can he mean? has Wordsworth any little isms?) yes, and another .. the “porcelain poet” Tennyson, who however “will never do anything great & spirit-stirring” … like Italy & the rest … which is a comfort. But that Leigh Hunt shd ever be raised up to such a height, & that the author of Italy shd “live to see it”, .. is quite astounding to him, .. only he is rather glad than otherwise of it, from motives of humanity—“It may benefit him”. That Dickens moreover shd be so “elevated,” is another marvel .. he, who is to pass away, with all his “coarse caricatures,” in the course of a lifetime!!! Altogether, Mr Reade feels precisely, on the subject of this book, “as Moliere did” when he observed disdainfully the successes of his contemporaries, who were to be forgotten in twenty years.! It is a sublime position.
I cannot resist telling you this—altho’ you must lay it by directly among our secrets—because, you see, Miss Mitford sent me the letter, & might think that I ought’nt to say a word about it. And perhaps I ought’nt. But I cannot resist the pleasure of communicating it to you in confidence. See what a “pure aspiration” is! How pure—how noble! How free from “envy malice & all uncharitableness”!– I wd not have such an inward fretting of the heartstrings, for a good deal more than the author of Italy’s sure chances with posterity.
Nothing is said of me, of course. And that is disdain; not toleration.
And now I come to tell you, that, .. thanking you twenty times for the promise of your aye or nay, on the ms question, .. I have reasonably determined not to trouble you with it. When I asked, I did not think of second editions. Nay, perhaps I did not think enough of anything. It was a request worthy, I admit now, of the Goddess of Unreason [10] —& I recall it—but, thankfully, believe me.
Yours with many sorts of gratitude
EBB–
I have written myself up again, with this letter. It does me good to write to you, you see. And there is not much essentially the matter,—I shall probably be quite right again tomorrow.
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 5. Fortess Terrace / Kentish Town.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 250–258 (in part).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. EBB refers to Horne’s instruction in letter 1560.
2. These references are from Horne’s chapter on EBB in A New Spirit, II, 133–134 (for the text, see our Appendix IV, p. 342).
3. Underscored three times.
4. A New Spirit, II, 80. Horne deleted this assertion from the 2nd edition.
5. Burns, “Man Was Made to Mourn” (Poems, Chiefly Scottish, 1786), st. XI, line 2.
6. Referring to an article on “Modern English Poetesses” in The Quarterly Review, Horne regretted the inclusion of “a lady of rank [Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley], whom it was a pity to introduce in company where she has no claim to rank” (II, 132).
7. Helen Lowe published Poems, Chiefly Dramatic (1840), The Prophecy of Balaam, and Other Poems (1841), and Zareefa, and Other Poems (1843).
8. Maria del Occidente was the pseudonym of the American poetess Maria Brooks (née Gowen, 1795–1845), whose works included Judith, Esther and Other Poems (1820), Zophiël; or, The Bride of Seven (1825) and Idomen; or, The Vale of Yumuri (1838).
9. These portraits are reproduced facing pp. 270 and 271.
10. i.e., the antithesis of the figure enthroned at the Feast of Reason held in 1793 during the French Revolution.
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