1206. EBB to Benjamin Robert Haydon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 59–61.
[London]
April 7th 1843–
I thank you most earnestly my dear kind friend for only substituting one kindness for another in the withdrawment of the first Wordsworth. Oh what a surprise to me who was in the midst of a sigh for the loss of my vision, .. to look up & see .... Helvellyn again, my poet again!!!– [1] Try to fancy the surprise it was!—& how a gladness lay perdu [2] in the surprise!—“and a stupidity” you will add, “in the gladness.”!– Because certainly I ought not to be surprised at any kindness of yours– I ought to be a connoisseur in it & you by this time!–
I like the new picture even better, in the general combination, than I did the last; although the head of the poet, probably from being less finished, is inferior as a likeness & expression of the individual intellect– But the general combination .. the balancement of the scenic nature & the Humanity .. is admirable .. very grandly & suggestively preserved; the nature not stooping to the man, nor the man dwarfed before the nature—the wild sky & the serene forehead unabashed & unshrinking in the presence of each other. I like too that eagle in the cloud “mewing his mighty strength” [3] in sympathy with the poet-soul underneath him!– What am I that I shd be gazing thus, from my sofa, on eagles, & rocks & clouds?– How can we talk of low crowns & crooked swords, when we may talk of eagles & rocks & clouds?– Ah—Mr Haydon!– You bribe me by them (—do you?) to give up, bound hand & foot to you, Napoleon, .. that you may smite him with the words of your mouth until there is no more rope?– Well—and if I do—will you promise me to smite besides the fair-lipped cold-hearted Austrian wife—Duchess of Parma .. worthy daughter of the double Francis .. Marie Louise of France?. Poor Josephine! [4] Her sorrow avenged her!–
There are two false wives, within the last century, standing cold upon pedestals of alabaster .. one of them being called by their admiring publics, “Innocence” .. the other .. “Virtue”,—Marie Louise & Lady Byron! Oh! I know that Lady Byron is of course “wisest virtuosest discreetest best” [5] .. but “all that” just makes her odiousest to me. Keep my secret for me, .. & shelter my discretion better than I do myself—which means .. Dont by any means, Mr Haydon, if she shd happen to be a very particular friend of yours, go & call upon her instantly, on purpose to tell her that I abhor her–
Why shdn’t I have read the Duke’s Despatches? How do you come to imagine that I have not read them? How did you come by your adroit guessing?– For the truth is, I really have not read them .. I had a presentiment that I could’nt– Is it your opinion that I, who have the misfortune of not being Marcus Curtius, [6] as you see, .. could read those Despatches?– Answer me, & decide my reading for me. I have read Cæsar’s commentaries, [7] to be sure, .. but I found them harder to read than his battles were to fight, .. & as dry .. as the Rubicon under the Canicular!– [8]
It is you who are ‘ingenious.’ Be ingenuous besides, & confess to me that the Duke of Wellington, although he magnanimously kept the fifth commandment & abstained from assassinating his great enemy, [9] did (absent or present) approve & assent in his soul to the Imprisonment on the rock & all the noble items thereto appertaining.
I congratulate you on the success of your children & wish it all double!, my thanks are a hundred times over!
Ever your obliged & sincere
Elizabeth B Barrett–
Wordsworth is Laureate– [10] Are you glad?– I am very glad indeed.
How is it possible that your kindnesses can do me any harm? I shd be in a mortal state indeed if they could.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 68–70 (as 6 April 1843).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. This was presumably a sketch only, as Haydon’s second portrait of Wordsworth was not started in earnest until November (see Pope, V, 325–328 passim).
2. “Lost.”
3. Cf. Milton, Areopagitica (1614), p. 34.
4. Napoleon divorced Josephine on 15 December 1809 and married Marie Louise of Austria on 11 March 1810.
5. Paradise Lost, VIII, 550. In letter 303, EBB had spoken of Lady Byron’s introducing “a medical spy” into Byron’s room “in order to obtain proofs of his insanity!!!”
6. i.e., not being prepared to leap into the gulf.
7. De Bello Gallico and De Bello Civili.
8. The dies caniculares (dog-days), occurring at the time of the rising of Sirius, the dog-star (July-August), were the hottest and most unwholesome period of the year. At this time, the waters of the Rubicon would be at their lowest.
9. As indicated in the previous letter, there was a considerable body of opinion favouring execution for Napoleon, but Wellington staunchly opposed this.
10. Wordsworth accepted the appointment as Poet Laureate in a letter to the Lord Chamberlain, Earl De La Warr, on 4 April 1843.
___________________
