1853. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 104–106.
[London]
Saturday. [1] March 1845. [1]
My dearest friend
I am aware that I should have written to you before, but the cold weather is apt to disable me, & to make me feel idle when it does not do so quite. Now I am going to write about your remarks on the Dublin review. [2]
Certainly I agree with you that there can be no necessity for explaining anything about the tutorship, if you do not kick against the pricks [3] of the insinuation, yourself—and especially as I consider that you were, in a sense, my ‘tutor,’—inasmuch as I may say, both, that nobody ever taught me so much Greek as you, and also that, without you, I should have probably lived & died without any knowledge of the Greek Fathers. [4] The Greek classics, I should have studied by love & instinct,—but the Fathers would probably have remained in their sepulchres, as far as my reading them was concerned. Therefore, very gratefully do I turn to you as my “tutor” in the best sense—and the more persons call you so, the better it is for the pleasures of my gratitude. The review amused me by hitting on the right meaning there, and besides by its percepiency about your remembering me during your travels in the East, and sending me home the Cyprus wine. Some of these reviewers have a wonderful gift at inferences.– The Metropolitan Magazine for March (which is to be sent to you when Papa has read it) contains a flaming article in my favour, calling me “the friend of Wordsworth,” & moreover a very little lower than the angels– You shall see it soon—and it is only just out, of course, being the March number. The praise is beyond thanking for—and then, I do not know whom to thank—I cannot at all guess at the writer. [5]
I have had a kind note from Lord Teynham, [6] whose oblivion I had ceased to doubt,—it seemed so proved to me that he had forgotten me. But he writes kindly—and it gave me pleasure to have some sign of recollection, if not of regard, from one whom I consider with unalterable & grateful respect, & shall always,—although I am aware that he denies all sympathy to my works & ways in literature & the world. In fact, & to set my poetry aside, he has joined that ‘straight sect’ of the Plymouth brethren, & of course has straightened his views since we met, .. and I, by the reaction of solitude & suffering, have broken many bonds which held me at that time. He was always straighter than I, and now the difference is immense. For I think the world wider than I once thought it, and I see God’s love broader than I once saw it. To the “Touch not, taste not, handle not” [7] of the strict religionists, I feel inclined to cry ‘Touch, taste handle——all things are pure.’ But I am writing this for you and not for him——and you probably will agree with me,—if you think as you used to think, at least.
But I do not agree with you on the League question, nor on the woman-question connected with it [8] —only we will not quarrel today,—and I have written enough already, without an argument at the end.
Can you guess what I have been doing lately? Washing out my conscience—effacing the blot on my escutcheon—performing an expiation—translating over again from the Greek, the Prometheus of Æschylus. [9]
Yes, my very dear friend! I could not bear to let that frigid, rigid exercise, called a version & called mine, .. cold as Caucasus, and flat as the neighbouring plain, .. stand as my work. A palinodia, a recantation, was necessary to me—and I have achieved it. Do you blame me, or not? Perhaps I may print it in a magazine—but this is not decided.
How delighted I am to think of your being well!– It makes me very happy–
Your ever affecte & grateful
Elibet.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24 (a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: LEBB, I, 242–244 (as 3 March 1845).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Day provided by postmark of 3 March 1845, a Monday.
2. For the complete text of the review in The Dublin University Magazine, see pp. 364–371.
3. Acts 9:5.
4. For an earlier reference to the Greek Fathers, see letter 275.
5. For the text of this review, see pp. 372–378. Westwood identified Charles Grant as the author (see letter 1881).
6. The Hon. and Rev. George Henry Roper-Curzon (1798–1889), 16th Baron Teynham. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1828 and was appointed to Ledbury where he conducted services in a building near Hope End (see Diary, p. 4). The “Plymouth Brethren” was a group of Evangelical Christians founded in Ireland in 1828 by J.N. Darby. A division occurred about this time because of the influence of Benjamin Wills Newton. Eventually, the followers of Darby became known as the “Exclusive Brethren”; and perhaps it is this branch of the Brethren to which Curzon belonged.
7. Colossians 2:21.
8. Presumably a reference to the issue of franchise for women.
9. See letter 1836, note 6.
___________________
