769. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 291–293.
Torquay. 1. Beacon Terrace
July 8th 40.
My ever dear friend,
I must write to you, although it is so very long, or at least seems so, since you wrote to me! But you say to Arabel in speaking of me that I “used to care for what is poetical”—therefore perhaps you say to yourself sometimes that I used [1] to care for you!– I am anxious to vindicate my identity to you, in that respect above all.
It is a long dreary time since I wrote to you. I admit the pause on my own part, while I charge you with another. But your silence has embraced more pleasantness & less suffering to you than mine has to me—and I thank God for a prosperity in which my unchangeable regard for you, causes me to share indirectly. Indeed it is, & always must be very pleasant for me to hear of your being well & appearing well, & enjoying any sort of gladness from Greek to bell-ringing, from the majores to the Bobs major—& I perceive that the latter ‘bears the bell’ [2] just now. I congratulate you on your bell neighbourhood. The caste seems excellent. And the clappers, according to Swift’s Laputa, [3] augur understanding.
“Bells on your fingers & rings on your toes
And you will have music wherever you goes” [4]
in your walks round the monastery. May other people have rings on their fingers, to give you the benefit of their marriage bells. I know your politics, and that you always liked a Peel [5] —excepting those three weeks when you wore the cap & bells & wear a radical “for love of me”. [6] But you dont write to me now—only to Arabel.
You see you have made me write nonsense once more, my dear friend. Indeed it seems almost time for me to pause from such work, & that I have had almost enough to wear out my laughters. I have not rallied this summer, as soon & well as I did last. I was very ill early in April at the time of our becoming conscious to our great affliction [7] —so ill, as to believe it utterly improbable, speaking humanly, that I ever should be any better. I am however a very great deal better, & gain strength by sensible degrees, however slowly—& do hope for the best—“the best” meaning one sight more of London. In the meantime I have not yet been able to leave my bed.
To prove to you that I who “used to care” for poetry, do so still, & that I have not been absolutely idle lately, an Athenæum shall be sent to you containing a poem on the subject of the removal of Napoleon’s ashes. [8] It is a fitter subject for you than for me. Napoleon is no idol of mine. I [9] never made a ‘setting-sun’ of him. But my physician suggested the subject as a noble one,—& then there was something suggestive in the consideration that the Bellerophon lay on those very bay-waters, opposite to my bed. [10]
Another poem (which you wont like, I dare say) is called ‘The Lay of the Rose’ & appeared lately in a magazine. Arabel is going to write it out for you, she desires me to tell you, with her best love. [11] Indeed I have written lately (as far as manuscript goes) a good deal—only on all sorts of subjects & in as many shapes.
Lazarus wd make a fine poem—wdnt he?– [12] I lie here, weaving a great many schemes– I am seldom at a loss for thread.
Do write some times to me—& tell me if you do anything besides hearing the clocks strike & bells ring. My beloved Papa is with me still. There are so many mercies close around me, (and his presence, far from the least),—that God’s Being seems proved to me, demonstrated to me, by His manifested love– May His blessing in the full lovingness, rest upon you always. Never fancy I can forget or think of you coldly.
Your affectionate & grateful
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 21. Downshire Hill / Hampstead / London.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 237–239.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Underscored three times.
2. Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (1379), III, 198.
3. A play on “flappers,” servants on Swift’s island in the air, who each carried a bladder in which was “a small Quantity of dryed Pease or little Pebbles.... With these Bladders they now and then flapped the Mouths and Ears of those who stood near them” in order to rouse them from the “intense Speculations” occupying their minds (Gulliver’s Travels, 1726, pt. III, ch. 2).
4. Cf. the anonymous nursery rhyme, “Ride a Cockhorse to Banbury Cross” (lines 3 and 4).
5. A play on Boyd’s interest in campanology and his political views.
6. Tennyson, “The Mermaid” (last line of verses two and three).
7. i.e., Sam’s death.
8. As a gesture of reconciliation, the Government had agreed to allow the repatriation of Napoleon’s remains, and Louis Philippe had ordered the Prince de Joinville to go to St. Helena and escort the body back to Paris. EBB’s poem, “Napoleon’s Return,” was printed in The Athenæum of 4 July (no. 662, p. 532). It was reprinted in a modified form in Poems (1844) as “Crowned and Buried.”
9. Underscored twice.
10. H.M.S. Bellerophon, under the command of Capt. Frederick Lewis Maitland (1777–1839) had brought Napoleon to England after his surrender; the ship arrived at Tor Bay on 24 July 1815.
11. “A Lay of the Rose” was printed in The Monthly Chronicle for July (pp. 13–17). Arabel’s handwritten copy is now at Wellesley (see Reconstruction, D454).
12. i.e., the story told in John, 11. No poem by EBB on this subject is extant.
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