1576. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 267–268.
[London]
March 22 1844.
My dearest Mr Boyd, I heard that once I wrote three times too long a letter to you; & I am aware that nine times too long a silence is scarcely the way to make up for it. Forgive me, however, as far as you can, for every sort of fault. When I once begin to write to you, I do not know how to stop—and I have had so much to do lately as scarcely to know how to begin to write to you. Hence these faults .. not quite tears … in spite of my penitence & the quotation. [1]
At last my book is in the press. My great poem (in the modest comparative sense) my “Masque of Exile” (as I call it at last) consists of some nineteen hundred or two thousand lines [2] —& I call it “masque of exile,” because it refers to Lucifer’s exile, and to That other mystical exile of the Divine Being, which was the means of the return homewards of my Adam & Eve. After the exultation & boldness of composition, I fell into one of my deepest fits of despondency, & at last, at the end of most painful vacillations, determined not to print it. Never was a manuscript so near the fire as my Masque was. I had not even the instinct of applying for help to anybody. In the midst of this, Mr Kenyon came in by accident, & asked about my poem. I told him that I had given it up,—despairing of my republic. In the kindest way he took it into his hand,—& proposed to carry it home, & read it, & tell me his impression. “You know”, he said, “I have a prejudice against these sacred subjects for poetry—but then I have another prejudice for you—and one may neutralize the other”. The next day I had a letter from him with the returned ms—a letter, which I was absolutely certain, before I opened it, wd counsel against the publication. On the contrary!! His impression is clearly in favor of the poem—and, .. while he makes sundry criticisms on minor points, .. he considers it very superior as a whole to anything I ever did before, .. more sustained, & fuller in power. So my nerves are braced—& I grow a man again! and the m∙s., as I told you, is on the press. Moreover you will be surprised to hear that I think of bringing out two volumes of poems instead of one, by advice of Mr Moxon the publisher. Also, the Americans have commanded an American edition,—to come out in numbers, either a little before or simultaneously with the English one,—& provided with a separate preface for themselves. [3]
There now! I have told you all this,—knowing your kindness, & that you will care to hear of it.
It has given me the greatest concern to hear of dear Annie’s illness, & I do hope, both for your sake & for all our sakes, that we may have better news of her before long.
But I dont mean to fall into another scrape today by writing too much. May God bless you, my very dear friend!
I am ever
your affectionate
EBB–
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24 (a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: LEBB, I, 171–172.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Cf. Terence, Andrea, line 126, trans. John Sargeaunt.
2. EBB, in her next letter to Boyd (1587), refers to the title under which it was published, “[A] Drama of Exile.” The finished poem ran to 2,270 lines.
3. As previously noted (letter 1572, note 3), the title poem was published in two numbers of The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review prior to the appearance of the full American edition. This had a six-page preface, professing EBB’s “love and admiration” for “the great American people,” and expressing her hesitations and reservations about publishing “A Drama of Exile,” fearing that its subject matter, and the appearance of Christ in a vision, might give offence.
___________________
