986. EBB to Editors of Arcturus [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 37–38.
London. 50 Wimpole Street–
July 18. 1842–
Miss Barrett, anxious to persuade the editors of Arcturus that she is not as ungrateful as this long silence might seem to express, begs them to understand in the first place that their letter dated the December of last year, did not reach her hands for many months afterwards, [2] & that in the second, some farther delay in her acknowledgement of it, was interposed by a pressure of occupation.
But the present late moment cannot, she feels, be too late for her to thank them, very earnestly for the honor they have done her poetry, both in Arcturus & out of it—and for the gift of several interesting numbers of that periodical: an honor as grateful to her feelings as the love of America is warm within them. And if the assurance of the editors of Arcturus, that her poetry will be “heartily received by the lovers of poetry in America;” may express a cordial hyperbole of American hospitality, .. it bears at least so pleasant a sound to her ear & heart, that she cannot choose but use it henceforwards, as a help both to her hope & actual endeavour towards deserving that kindness in some better measure–
In the meanwhile she places at the disposal of the editors the few enclosed sonnets & stanzas [3] —less for their worthiness than for the fear of seeming to neglect a request so courteously made—and requesting on her own side a continuance of the benign “celestial influences” of Arcturus!
Address: To the Editors of Arcturus / 164. Broadway / New York. / U.S. / America.
Publication: BBIS-23, p. 8 (in part).
Manuscript: Princeton University.
1. Arcturus was edited by Cornelius Mathews (1817-89), with whom EBB later became friendly (see pp. 363-364), and his friend Evert A. Duyckinck (1816-78).
2. In letter 911, EBB tells Miss Mitford that the issues of Arcturus arrived on 21 February, not exactly “many months” after their dispatch.
3. Arcturus ceased publication with the May 1842 number, but the editors passed EBB’s submissions to other magazines. “The Cry of the Human” appeared in The Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion, November 1842, pp. 197–199, and four sonnets were printed in Graham’s Magazine, December 1842, p. 303; these were “I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless”; “When some belovéd voice, which was to you”; “What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil!” and “The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel” (Taplin, p. 108).
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