1040. EBB to Cornelius Mathews
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 134–136.
50 Wimpole St., London,
Nov. 3, 1842.
Dear Sir: Your kind and cordial letter should have been instantly replied to, but it spoke of still more kindness than it contained—namely, of the gift of a work of yours, which did not accompany it—and I waited for the book in vain, hoping vainly that what did not accompany might follow. [2] Where can it be? I try not to believe that you have “thought better of it” and worse of me, and so recalled your gift. I try also not to fancy that it has wandered astray on the “happy islands,” [3] and that I never am myself to be happy with the sight of it. I hope on, for a little while at least, that as my letter to “Arcturus” [4] strayed “by some error of the moon,” [5] you say, and at last came safe into your hands, so may your book do. Still, it is not here now. I have watched in vain for it, and I cannot permit you to think that, having it in my possession and being obtuse in my gratitude, I should return you silence instead of thanks.
The cataracts and mountains you speak of have been, are, mighty dreams to me—and the great people which, proportionate to that scenery, is springing up in their midst to fill a yet vaster futurity, is dearer to me than a dream. America is our brother-land, and though a younger brother, sits already on the teacher’s seat, and expounds the common rights of our humanity. It would be strange indeed if we in England did not love and exult in America—if English poets, of whom I am least if at all, did not receive with a peculiar feeling of gratitude and satisfaction the kind welcoming word of American readers. Believe me grateful to America—grateful to your Arcturus—to the memory of your Arcturus, must I say?—grateful to the North American Review [6] —grateful personally to yourself and your friend [7] —and grateful to all; will you assure him of it? with no passing emotion. It is delightful and encouraging to me to think that there, among “the cataracts and mountains,” which I never shall see—there in “dreamland” sound the voices of friends—and it shall be a constant effort with me (as I told Arcturus before) to deserve presently in some better measure the kindness for which I never can be more grateful than now.
We have one Shakspeare between us—your land and ours—have we not? and one Milton, and now we are waiting for you to give us another. Niagara ought—
“And music born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into his face.” [8]
In the meantime give honor to those tuneful voices, which prophesy a yet sweeter music than they utter. You do honor to my verses in permitting them to approach and breath[e] the “sweet air” [9] of Mr Bryant’s. [10]
You would wonder a good deal—but would do so less if you were aware of the seclusion of my life, when I tell you that I never consciously stood face to face with an American in the whole course of it. I never had any sort of personal acquaintance with an American, man or woman. Therefore you are all dreamed dreams to me “Gentle dreams” I may well account you.
I do hope, however, that the book you promised me has not, dream like, dispersed, because that seemed in the promise, “a golden dream.” [11] And now, lest you should go to sleep to get rid of me,
I will remain, dear sir, thankfully and sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.
Text: The Collector, November 1891, p. 34.
1. For details of EBB’s association with Mathews, see pp. 363–364.
2. EBB acknowledges his gift of Wakondah; The Master of Life in letter 1059.
3. i.e., the Fortunate or Blessed Islands, an imaginary place where the souls of the good resided in bliss.
5. Cf. Othello, V, 2, 109.
6. For the review reprinted on pp. 373–379.
7. His colleague, Evert A. Duyckinck (1816–78), who wrote the Arcturus review (see Volume 5, pp. 388–389).
8. Lines 29–30, slightly misquoted, of Wordsworth’s poem beginning “Three years
9. Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814), IX, 25.
10. William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878), author of “Thanatopsis” (1817) and Poems (1821 and 1832), was sometime editor of The New York Review and The Evening Post.
11. Shelley, “Epipsychidion” (1824), line 116.
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