349. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 206–207.
[Hope End]
Thursday Evening. [1829] [1]
My dear Mr Boyd,
I received your letter yesterday, & was in hopes, notwithstanding the obstinate clouds, to be able to answer it this morning by going to see you. Every day since Saturday, I have been hoping to see you; & today, the horses were actually ordered. What can I do? I can neither arrest a deluge, nor persuade anybody here (except myself) that being wet thro’, is a very comfortable & pleasant thing!—a desiderandum!
I meant to have taken with me today the following extract from the learned Abbè Barthelemi’s introduction to his “Voyage of Anacharsis”. It consists of his opposition to a few of the charges generally & principally brought against Homer—& pleased me very much when I read it for the first time a few days ago. Don’t criticise my translation, which sounds to my own ear, as stiff as buckram, or the grounds at Croome. [2] No one can succeed at translation, without having the talent for it & the habit of it, neither of which I have.
“Plato imagined that he did not find sufficient dignity in the grief of Achilles nor in that of Priam, when the former rolls himself in the dust after the death of Patroclus—when the latter assumes a lowly demeanor in order to obtain the body of his son. But what a strange dignity is that which would destroy sentiment! For my own part, I admire Homer for having, like nature, placed weakness by the side of strength, & the abyss by the side of the elevation. I admire him yet more, for having displayed to me the best of fathers in the most powerful of kings, & the tenderest of friends in the most fiery of heroes.
I have heard Homer blamed for the violent language which he permits his heroes to use in the midst both of their counsels & their combats. I have then cast my eyes upon children, who are nearer to nature than we—upon the populace, which is constituted like children—upon savages, who are merely a populace—and I have observed among them all, that anger, previous to discovering itself by effects, announces its presence by ostentation by insolence & by outrage.
I have heard Homer reproached for having painted in their simplicity, the manners of the times which preceded him. I smiled at the criticism—& was silent!” [3]
Tell Miss Boyd that the Malvern dinner party is not given up in spite of the wind & rain. Tho’ I send you the Abbè Barthelemi’s criticism on the critics, & write a letter besides, you shall see me as soon as ever I can see the sun, & the prudent people here cannot feel the rain! If the rain continues much longer, & Proteus does not drive us [out] of the valleys, videre altos montes [4] (in which case we may float in the Malvern direction) there is nothing for us but drowning—& then you may moralize & Deucalionize [5] on the Worcestershire Beacon! [6] ——
Believe me—till then—
Yours affectionately
E B Barrett.
Address, on integral page: H.S. Boyd Esqr / Great Malvern.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 75–76.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. In the absence of any indication of a specific date, we have followed the order established by Barbara McCarthy, placing this letter ahead of no. 350.
2. Croome Court, seat of the Earls of Coventry.
3. The passage translated is taken from the introduction (I, 88–89) of Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (1788) by Jean Jacques Barthélemy (1716–95). EBB’s copy of this volume sold as part of lot 931 in Browning Collections, and is now at ABL (Reconstruction, A165).
4. “To see the high mountains.” Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, tended Poseidon’s herds.
5. Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha were the only survivors of the Great Flood sent by Zeus to destroy mankind. After the flood, on instructions from the Oracle of Themis, they repopulated the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders—those thrown by Deucalion becoming men, those thrown by Pyrrha becoming women.
6. Deucalion’s ark came to rest on Mount Parnassus; the Worcestershire Beacon, summit of the Malvern Hills (1,395 ft.), was EBB’s local equivalent.
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