1351. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 276–277.
London
Aug 8. 1843
My dearest Dream /
You are an imagination to me!—& I like it.–
I gave my lecture last night to a crowded & enthusiastic audience!– [1] I wish you had been there—I had an exquisite Cartoon by Raffael, & proved to the Audience the superiority of the Italian to the German Cartoon– My Cartoons tend to the Italian & not the German & the German being the go at Court—I had no chance– I send you the lecture, & will send for it to-morrow morning take care of it—& will send also for my box–
Though hideously pressed I have escaped the immediate danger of executions! [2] —how mysteriously have I been influenced all my Life!– About an hour before going last night—I mounted to my Heavenly Study—& felt as if conversing with a Supernatural being!—all my life crowded to my mind!– I thought here now is another Crisis, failure would be perpetual ridicule!—if I fail– But why should I?—have I not always had a brilliant beam in my brain, with “go on” in a star, shining in the Midst– Have I not often heard awful Whispers as if from some Awful spirit! In the Storm & thunder does not my Soul feel, as if I was a part of the turbulence!– I cannot have been urged on in this way, to be destroyed & mocked!—no—I shall succeed, & let no doubts torment me.
There lay the Bible before me! Shall I open & consult the lots– [3] Why?– I must—& I did & descended to go, cool & collected–
My Beautiful Heroine of a Mary with her rich exquisite face was there & my second Son [4] & they witnessed the Completest Victory of any lecture I ever gave—full of these aspirations I was of course cheated by my money taker! & this is life!
Adieu—the lecture is private for you—and if not very troublesome—may I have the box to day?
God bless you
Ever yours & Ever
B R Haydon
B. Barrett
When I talk of my affairs remember it is to unburthen not to excite sympathy or assistance– I like to relieve my mind[.]
Address, on integral page: Miss B. Barrett / 50. Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 137–138.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. Haydon had said in letter 1342 that he would give vent to his feelings in a lecture. He recorded in his diary for 8 August: “Thank God, my lecture was the most brilliant Success! How mysteriously am I influenced, O God! Accept my deepest gratitude, Amen! Many members [of the Academy] were there & cheered me much. It was the Completest success in a lecture I ever had” (Pope, V, 301). The lecture, given at the Freemasons’ Tavern, had as its subject the Cartoon Exhibition. While saying that “a triumph had been achieved which would reflect lustre upon the British name,” Haydon regretted that “the drawings did not sufficiently tend to develope, in a national point of view, any great moral, religious, or political purposes.” (See The Morning Chronicle, 8 August 1843.)
2. Haydon wrote on 5 August: “much harrassed in money. Went out in all the horrors of an Execution [for debt], which I got delayed till Tuesday” (loc. cit.).
3. Sortes Biblicæ, after the fashion of sortes Vergilianæ (see letter 1032, note 7).
4. Frederic Wordsworth Haydon was actually Haydon’s third son, but the second, Alfred, had died in 1833, aged seven.
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