1321. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 237–238.
[London]
July 13– 1843.
Dear Mr Horne,
I return the magazines & letters with thanks to you for the great pleasure which in many ways they have given to me. I am a sort of believer in Hand-writing divination, [1] & took interest in the very shapes of their respective alphabets: and then it is delightful to see how the feeling for Orion spreads & deepens in all classes of minds, .. how not a single note of the octave, along which you trailed your finger, is dumb or responseless.
Yes, the last review [2] does you fuller justice than the others—indeed, very full justice, as it seems to me. But wont the Westminster review speak out, as it ought? wont your friends of the Ch. of England Quarterly help you in any wise? & will no one climb the heights of the Edinburgh with the new epic in his hand?– [3]
These are wishes rather than questions– I will be innocent of teazing you today.
Sincerely yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Shyness imply doubt?! [4] Surely not—except it be doubt of oneself.
But it is a species of consciousness which is, as Miss Mitford observes wisely, resolvable into self-love, .. subtilize about it as we may. Only perhaps in some cases, & where there is no reserve of character to back-ground it, .. the nerves, considered physically, should be justly obliged to bear the blame .. I hope so, but do not know it. One thing I know .. that I cannot be innocent of teazing you, let my resolutions set in ever so well!
Adieu– You wont hear from me again these two months to come.
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 36. New Broad Street.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 69–70.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. For earlier expressions of EBB’s interest in graphology, see letters 1177 and 1270.
2. i.e., that in The Monthly Magazine (see letter 1318, note 2).
3. No reviews of Orion appeared in these publications during 1843.
4. EBB refers to a comment made by Horne at the end of letter 1318.
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