Correspondence

1765.  EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 238–239.

[London]

November 21. 1844.

My very dear friend,

Forgive me for whatever may have borne the appearance of negligence! I could not determinately neglect any request of yours,—& the truth is in the present case, that I fancied I had either written to you or sent you a message on the subject of the Cyprus wine, & that, so far from imagining myself to be your debtor in the way of writing, I was every day expecting a letter from you which seemed to me to loiter. See how it is with me! Thought is so much to me what action is to people in general, that when I think of doing a thing, it remains doubtful to my mind often, whether I have not done it in the thinking.

As to the magazines, .. if I had told you of the reviews directly, I knew that you wd have been impatient, & bought them, and I wanted to send them to you, so as to spare you that expense,—and then they were detained here by loitering readers, longer than I expected in the first instance. Be sure, I did not forget you in reading them. How could I? Whenever I read a review that pleases me, the thought of you comes instantly & naturally with the assurance of your sympathy. Did Arabel tell you that the Westminster Review has announced a criticism? The poems have been well reviewed, .. have they not? Blackwood has treated them better than he has been known to treat poetry for years & years– And yet you see, these gentlemen of the press appear ‘agreed’ to throw over the ‘Drama of Exile’ as a failure, before they admit any good in what follows. I suppose, as you say with sufficient niceness of distinction, they take one to be warm in the mouth, and the other, warm in the stomach.

And this warns me to return to the unfinished theme of Cyprus Wine. I pause to thank you for your generosity in sending me another bottle (indeed it is too kind of you!) and then I proceed to try and answer your question. But how am I to answer it? I am afraid that I did not analyze my sensations with definitiveness enough to distinguish between the mouth-warmth & the stomachic warmth, in my recollection of the first wine I had from you & its effects. I thought & still think that first wine a little superior to what you have had the kindness to send me lately, .. but the only point of difference I can perceive strongly enough to describe, is the point of flavour. The first wine had more of the flavour of oranges & was sweeter, I think. There is assuredly a difference, & perhaps it may consist in something more than what I have mentioned—but I cannot analyze or describe the degree. My palate has not been educated with regard to wines——and this is the only wine of the gods I ever tasted. Therefore you should not expect too much from me.

The lady who gave her heart in exchange for a vial of Cyprus wine, [1] must have been like the gentleman in the song

 

“Fond of love but fonder of the bottle.” [2]

For my own part & in matters of sentiment, I decidedly prefer Ben Jonson’s cellarage–

 

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine.” [3]

So,—to shift the question between you <& m>e,—I beg you to consider (analyzing your sensations) what is the difference to your imagination, between a cup of Cyprus & a pair of the brightest of eyes … say Miss Caroline Marcus’s! [4] Which is the warmest in the mouth? and which, the warmest in the stomach?

Ever most affectionately yours

Elizabeth B Barrett

Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24 (a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.

Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 267–269.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Unidentified.

2. We have been unable to locate the source of this quotation.

3. Ben Jonson, The Forest, ix, “Song. To Celia” (1616) lines 1–2.

4. Believed to be the daughter of the Rev. M. Marcus of 16 Caroline Street, Bedford Square (see letter 1381).

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