1071. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 192–194.
[London]
Decr 4. 1842–
My very dear friend,
You will think me in a discontented state of mind when I knit my brows like a “sleeve of care” [1] over your kind praises. But the truth is, I wont be praised for being liberal in Calvinism & love of Byron. I, liberal in commending Byron. Take out my heart & try it! look at it, & compare it with yours—& answer & tell me if I do not love & admire Byron more warmly than you yourself do. I suspect it indeed. Why, I am always reproached for my love to Byron. Why, people say to me––“you, who overpraise Byron”! Why, when I was a little girl (and whatever you may think, my tendency is not to cast off my old loves!) I used to think seriously of dressing up like a boy & running away to be Ld Byron’s page. [2] And I to be praised now for being “liberal” in admitting the merit of his poetry! I!!!!– [3]
As for the Calvinism, I dont choose to be liberal there either. I dont call myself a Calvinist. I hang suspended between the two doctrines—and hide my eyes in God’s love from the sights which other people say they see– I believe simply that the saved are saved by grace, [4] & that they shall hereafter know it fully—& that the Lost are lost by their choice of free will .. by choosing to sin & die: & I believe absolutely that the deepest damned of all the lost will not dare to whisper to the nearest devil that reproach of Martha .. “If the Lord had been near me, I had not died”. [5] But of the means of the working of God’s grace, & of the time of the formation of the Divine counsels I know nothing, guess nothing, & struggle to guess nothing: & my persuasion is that when people talk of what was ordained or approved by God before the foundations of the world, their tendency is almost always towards a confusion of His eternal nature & with the human conditions of ours; & to an oblivion of the fact that with Him, there can be no after, nor before.
At any rate I do not find it good for myself to examine any more the brickbats of controversy—there is more than enough to think of in truths clearly revealed,—more than enough for the exercise of the intellect & affections & adorations. I wd rather not suffer myself to be disturbed & perhaps irritated, where it is not likely that I should ever be informed. And altho’ you tell me that your system of investigation is different from some others,–––answer me with your accustomed candour: & admit My very dear friend, that this argument does not depend upon the construction of a Greek sentence or the meaning of a Greek word. Let a certain word be “fore-know” or “publicly favor,”—room for a stormy controversy yet remains– [6] I went through the Romans with you partially, & wholly by myself, by your desire, & in reference to the controversy, long ago: and I could not then, & cannot now enter into that view of Taylor & Adam Clarke & yourself I believe, as to the Jews & Gentiles. [7] Neither could I conceive that a particular part of the epistle represents an actual dialogue between a Jew & Gentile—since the form of question & answer appears to me there simply rhetorical– The apostle Paul was learned in rhetoric; & I think he described so, by a rhetorical & vivacious form, that struggle between the flesh & the spirit, common to all christians; the spirit being triumphant through God in Christ Jesus. These are my impressions. Yours are different. And since we should not probably persuade each other, & since we are both of us fond of & earnest in what we fancy to be truth, why should we cast away the thousand sympathies we rejoice in, religious & otherwise, for the sake of a fruitless contention? “What!” you would say, (by the time we had quarrelled half an hour) “cant you talk without being excited”! Half an hour afterwards, .. “Pray do lower your voice—it goes through my head!”– In another ten minutes—“I could scarcely have believed you to be so obstinate”– In another … “Your prejudices are insurmountable, & your reasoning most womanly—you are degenerated to the last degree.” In another .. why, then … you wd turn me & Flush out of the room & so finish the controversy victoriously.
Was I wrong too, dearest Mr Boyd, in sending the poems to the Athenæum? [8] Well—I meant to be right. I fancied that you would rather they were sent, & as your name was not attached, there could be no harm in leaving them to the editor’s disposal. They are not inserted, as I anticipated. The religious character was a sufficient objection—their character of prayer. Mr Dilke begged me once while I was writing for him, to write the name of God & Jesus Christ as little as I could, because those names did not accord with the secular character of the Journal!!!–
Ever your affectionate & grateful
Elizabeth B Barrett–
Tell me how you like the sonnet [9] —but you wont (I prophesy) like it. Keep the Athenæum–
Address: H S Boyd Esqr
Publication: LEBB, I, 115–117.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Macbeth, II, 2, 34.
2. See volume 1, pp. 360–362, for an early essay in which EBB expressed her desire to escape the limitations of her sex.
3. Underscored four times.
4. Cf. Ephesians, 2:8.
5. Cf. John, 11:21.
6. The King James version of Romans, 8:29 reads: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren.” A brief summary of the opposing interpretations of this verse may be found in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, ed. Joseph H. Thayer, 1887, under προγινώσκω.
7. Clarke, referring in The New Testament … With a Commentary and Critical Notes (1817) to the above verse, said “foreknow, here, signifies to design before, or at the first forming of the scheme: to bestow favour and privilege of being God’s people upon any set of men.” Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down and Connor (1613–67) also adhered to the above wording of Romans (see The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, 1822).
9. EBB’s verses on Haydon’s portrait of Wordsworth.
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