1482. EBB to Benjamin Robert Haydon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 127–129.
[London]
Jany. 1. 1843. [sic, for 1844] [1]
My dear Mr Haydon
If I am a stone, I am a stone, you probably think, .. & there’s an end of me in cases of wooden pavement. Not to write for so long! Not to be wakened-up by the sight of your pictures! But there, you err! For I am wakened up by your pictures!.
Thank you much, much, for your kindness in permitting me to look at them. They are fine in different ways. Curtius fulfils my idea from your first sketch—and it strikes me that you have happily siezed the balance of the moment when the horse begins to sink,—losing his muscular command, & power of animal life,—while the man-will reigns right royally unto death– The other picture contains a grand thought which “the world will not let die”– I ought not to upbraid you after all with Napoleon. You have done him noble homage. You have been one of the Kings in his antechambers .. have you not? Who can deny it?
Talking of kings & their fashions,—when you proposed to me to “exchange portraits royally,” it was necessary first of all that there shd be a portrait of each of us in existence.
Two years ago when I was in Devonshire, & my chances appeared small of ever returning, I admitted a Mrs Carter a miniature painter to my bed-room, & she made a portrait of me for ‘Papa’—which, because it is’nt like, there can be no use in sending for your examination. For I say it is flattering & he says it is libelling, & both of us are right in a way, [2] —the features being better & more regular than mine, & the expression more indicative perhaps of …
“My Damon! I am sick” [3]
than I have pastoral sentiment for!– That it is’nt like altogether, we agree—& thus I wont send it for you to see: and besides, I am not a King—& besides, I mean to try to be remembered by my soul rather than by my body, .. which last (in confidence) is not worth much of your enquiry. I would not be engraved for some publishers who asked me the other day,—I am sick of bodies for my part. Except for my body, should I not have seen your Alexander before now? Certainly I owe it a grudge—& have half a mind to draw it for you & avenge myself. But no—! Yet to give scanty data to your fancy,—thus,—I am “little & black” [4] like Sappho, en attendant the immortality [5] —five feet one high,—with the latitudes straight to correspond—eyes of various colours as the sun shines— .. called blue & black, without being accidentally black & blue—affidavit-ed for grey—sworn at for hazel—& set down by myself (according to my ‘private view’ in the glass) as dark-green-brown—grounded with brown; & green otherwise; what is called “invisible green” in invisible garden-fences .. I shd be particular to you who are a colourist. Not much nose of any kind, .. certes no superfluity of nose; but to make up for it, a mouth suitable to a larger personality—oh, and a very very little voice, to which Cordelia’s was a happy medium. [6] Dark hair & complexion. Small face & sundries.
Whereupon, terrified by the image of a green-eyed monster, [7] you start back, & I break off suddenly. Sic periit gloria fœminarum! [8]
Faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
I have been & am very busy—& have not been well with cold &c.
Bear in mind how I thank you for the pictures—! And your card—they brought it up to me.!
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 17–19 (as 1 January 1843).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. EBB refers to Haydon’s letter of 19 December 1843 (no. 1463).
2. See letter 819 for EBB’s family’s opinion of Mrs. Carter’s portrait.
3. EBB is quoting from an unpublished stanza by Uvedale Price, previously mentioned in letter 319.
4. Cf. Ovid, Heroides, XV, 33–36.
5. “While waiting for the immortality.” Sappho, referred to by some of the ancients as the tenth Muse because of the sublimity of her poetry, was paid divine honours after her death by the inhabitants of Lesbos.
6. “Her voice was ever soft, / Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman” (King Lear, V, 3, 273–274).
7. Othello, III, 3, 166.
8. “Thus perishes the glory of woman.”
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