655. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 65–66.
50 Wimpole Street–
June [sic, for July] 17. [1838] [1]
My dear friend,
I send you a number of the Atlas which you may keep. It is a favorable criticism certainly—but I confess this of my vanity, that it has not altogether pleased me. [2] You see what it is to be spoilt!——
As to the Athenæum, although I am not conscious of the quaintness & mannerism laid to my charge, & am very sure that I have always written too naturally (that is, too much from the impulse of thought & feeling) to have studied ‘attitudes’, yet the critic was quite right in stating his opinion, & so am I in being grateful to him for the liberal praise he has otherwise given me. [3] Upon the whole, I like his review better than even the Examiner’s, notwithstanding my being perfectly satisfied with that. [4]
Thank you for the question about my health. I am very tolerably well—for me!—& am said to look better. At the same time I am aware of being always on the verge of an increase of illness—I mean, in a very excitable state—with a pulse that flies off at a word & is only to be caught by digitalis. But I am better—for the present—while the sun shines.
Thank you besides for your criticisms, which I shall hold in memory, & use whenever I am not particularly obstinate, in all my succeeding editions!!
You will smile at that, & so do I!
Arabel is walking in the Zoological Gardens with the Cliffes [5] —but I think you will see her before long.
Your affectionate friend
E B Barrett.
Dont let me forget to mention the Essays. You shall have yours—& Miss Bordman, hers—& the delay has not arisen from either forgetfulness or indifference on my part—altho’ I never deny that I dont like giving the essay to anybody because I dont like it. [6] Now that sounds just like “a woman’s reason”, but it isn’t, albeit so reasonable! I meant to say––“because I dont like the essay”.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / 3 Circus Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: LEBB, I, 69–70.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The three magazines to which EBB refers were, respectively, the issues of 23 June 1838, 7 July 1838 and 24 June 1838, making it apparent that her dating of June was incorrect.
2. The Atlas, no. 632, 23 June 1838, p. 395, in a review of The Seraphim, commented that EBB “merely gives us a distant glimpse of the crucifixion, and throws a poetical obscurity over it which may probably impress her readers more solemnly than if she had ventured to delineate it with a bolder hand.... The form of the dialogue is irregular, and it constitutes, as the author justly describes it, a dramatic lyric, rather than a lyrical drama. In this conception there is not much power, nor does it admit of that breadth and force in the treatment of which the subject is susceptible, and, indeed, which it demands. But … the suggestion is sufficiently striking to excite the imagination, and, although in some parts the poem is feeble and obscure, there are occasional passages of great beauty, and full of deep poetical feeling.... Miss Barrett is sometimes chargeable with affectation. She overworks the tints, and … the tapestry has consequently a cumbrous appearance, here and there, from the excessive weight of colouring. But she possesses a fine poetical temperament, and has given the public, in this volume, a work of considerable merit.” (For the full text, see pp. 372–373.)
3. The Athenæum, no. 558, 7 July 1838, pp. 466–468, called The Seraphim “an extraordinary volume … Miss Barrett’s genius is of a high order; active, vigorous, and versatile, but unaccompanied by discriminating taste. A thousand strange and beautiful visions flit across her mind but she cannot look on them with steady gaze;—her descriptions, therefore, are often shadowy and indistinct, and her language wanting in the simplicity of unaffected earnestness.” Later in the article, the reviewer [Chorley] speaks of being “constantly drawn downwards from ecstatic visions … to consider some peculiarity of attitude and utterance … distracting our attention from the divine wisdom” issuing from the angel’s lips. The review ends with the hope that “our words,—which … have not been hastily conceived,—sink into her mind, and like ‘bread cast upon the waters’ be found again ‘after many days,’ in a strengthened resolution on her part to give her fancy, and her strength, and her learning, the only assistance they require to become widely as well as warmly recognized,—that is, a simpler and less mannered clothing than they at present wear.” (For the full text, see pp. 375–378.)
4. For The Examiner review, see letter 648, note 2.
5. Mrs. Cliffe and her daughter Eliza, neighbours of the Barretts in the Hope End days, were guests of Boyd’s daughter and son-in-law (see SD926).
6. Copies of An Essay on Mind, finally sent in August (see letter 659).
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