Correspondence

1809.  EBB to Henry Fothergill Chorley

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 13–15.

50 Wimpole Street

Jan. 7. 1845.

Dear Mr Chorley

You are very good to deign to answer my impertinences, & not be disgusted by my defamations of “the grandmothers”—and (to diminish my perversity in your eyes) I am ready to admit at once that we are generally too apt to run into premature classification, .. the error of all imperfect knowledge, .. & into unreasonable exclusiveness .. the vice of it. We spoil the shining surface of life by our black lines drawn through & through .. as if ominously for a game of the Fox & Goose. [1] For my own part, however imperfect my practice may be, I am intimately convinced, .. & more & more, since my long seclusion, .. that to live in a house with windows on every side, so as to catch both the morning & evening sunshine, is the best & brightest thing we have to do, .. to say nothing about the justest and wisest. Sympathies are our opportunities of good.

Moreover I know nothing of your [‘]‘sweet mistress Anne”– [2] I never read a verse of hers. Ignorance goes for much, you see, in all our mal-criticisms—& my ignorance goes to this extent. I cannot write to you of your Anglo-American poetess.

Also, in my sweeping speech about the grandmothers, I shd have stopped before such instances as the exquisite ballad of Auld Robin Gray, which is attributed to a woman, & the pathetic ‘Ballow my babe,’ which tradition calls ‘Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament.’ [3] I have certain doubts of my own, indeed, in relation to both origins—& with regard to Robin Gray in particular:—but doubts are not worthy stuff enough to be taken into an argument,—& certainly therefore I shd have admitted those two ballads as worthy poems before the Joannan æra. [4]

For what I ventured to say otherwise, would you not consent to join our sympathies, & receive the “choir” (ah—but you are very cunningly subtle in your distinctions!– I am afraid I was too simple for you!) as agreeable writers of verses sometimes, leaving the word poet alone? Because, you see, what you call the “bad dispensation” by no means accounts for the want of the faculty of poetry, strictly so called. England has had many learned women, not merely readers but writers of the learned languages, in Elizabeth’s time & afterwards,—women of deeper acquirements than are common now in the greater diffusion of letters: and yet where were the poetesses? The divine breath which seemed to come & go, &, ere it went, filled the land with that crowd of true poets whom we call the old dramatists, .. why did it never pass <even in the lyrical form> [5] over the lips of a woman? How strange! And can we deny that it was so? I look everywhere for Grandmothers & see none. It is not in the filial spirit I am deficient, I do assure you—witness my reverent love of the grandfathers!–

Seriously, .. I do not presume to enter into argument with you, & this in relation to a critical paper which I admire in so many ways & am grateful for in some,—but is not the poet a different man from the cleverest versifier, & is it not well for the world to be taught the difference? The divineness of poetry is far more to me than either pride of sex or personal pride—and though willing to acknowledge the lowest breath of the Inspiration, I cannot, the “powder & patch.” [6] As powder & patch, I may—but not as poetry. And though I in turn may suffer for this, my.self, .. though I too (anch’io) may be turned out of ‘Arcadia,’ [7] & told that I am not a poet, .. still, I should be content, I hope, that the divineness of poetry be proved in my humanness, rather than lowered to my uses.

But you shall not think me exclusive! Of poor LEL for instance, I could write with more praiseful appreciation than you can. It appears to me that she had the gift, though in certain respects, she dishonored the art—& her latter lyrics are, many of them, of great beauty & melody .. such as, having once touched the ear of a reader, live on in it. I observe in your ‘Life of Mrs Hemans’—(shall I tell you how often I have read those volumes?) [8] she (Mrs H) never appears, in any given letter or recorded opinion, to esteem her contemporary. The antagonism lay probably in the higher parts of Mrs Hemans’s character & mind,—& we are not to wonder at it.

It is very pleasant to me to have your approbation of the sonnets on George Sand, [9] on the points of feeling & rightness—on which all my readers have not absolved me equally, I have reason to know. I am more a latitudinarian in literature than it is generally thought expedient for women to be; & I have that admiration for genius which dear Mr Kenyon calls my ‘immoral sympathy with power’: and if Madme Dudevant is not the first female genius of any country or age I really do not know who is. And then, she has certain noblenesses .. granting all the evil & “perillous stuff” [10] —noblenesses & royalnesses which make me loyal. Do pardon me for intruding all this on you, though you cannot justify me—you, who are occupied beyond measure,—& I, who know it! I have been under the delusion too, during this writing, of having something like a friend’s claim to write & be troublesome—I have lived so near your friends that I keep the odour of them! [11] A mere delusion—alas!!—my only personal right in respect to you, being one that I am not likely to forget or waive .. the right of being grateful to you.

But so, & looking again at the last words of your letter, I see that you ‘wish’ in the kindest of words, “to do something more for me.” I hope some day to take this ‘something more’ of your kindness, out, in the pleasure of personal intercourse; and if, in the meantime, you should consent to flatter my delusion by letting me hear from you now & then, if ever you have a moment to waste & inclination to waste it, why I, on my side, shall always be ready to thank you for the ‘something more’ of kindness, as bound in the duty of gratitude. In any case

I remain

truly and faithfully yours

Elizabeth B Barrett

Publication: LEBB, I, 230–233.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. “Fox and Geese” is a board game dating back to the Middle Ages. A board may be cross-shaped or round with hollow spaces for marbles or draughtsmen.

2. Perhaps this is a reference to Anne Bradstreet (ca. 1612–72) who emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England about 1630 with her husband, Simon Bradstreet (1603–97). Her volume, The Tenth Muse was published in London in 1650.

3. A complete account of the origins of “Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament” is given in The Scottish Ballads (1829) by Robert Chambers, but this “pathetic lament,” as Chambers calls it, was evidently written by Anne, daughter to Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney. “Auld Robin Gray” was by Anne Barnard (née Lindsay, 1750–1825).

4. i.e., before Joanna Baillie.

5. Bracketed passage is inserted above the line.

6. Cf. Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712) I, 138.

7. Perhaps EBB is alluding to the famous inscription on a tomb in paintings by Guercino, Poussin, Reynolds, etc: “Et in Arcadia ego.” It is usually translated: “I too am in Arcadia.”

8. In letter 1658, EBB told Miss Mitford she was reading it for a second time.

9. i.e., “To George Sand. A Desire” and “To George Sand. A Recognition,” both published in Poems (1844). Chorley’s remarks must have been made in a letter which has not survived since there is no mention of these poems in either of the reviews written by him.

10. Macbeth, V, 3, 44.

11. See letter 1676, note 8.

___________________

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