1356. Benjamin Robert Haydon to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 284–285.
London
Aug 16 1843
My dream! /
If you want to enjoy Windsor Castle, I will tell you how to do–
Take the Testament in your pocket—go to Herne’s Oak, [1] stretch yourself out & read St Paul!– Every now & then look up, & perhaps you will see a little glittering speck in a little hole, in a long Stone Castle, with Turrets[,] that is the Queen!– then you will see a dozen specks, come galloping down with little bits of yellow cases on wheels—they are (specks & cases) the Royal family! Then you will look again & call to mind, in that long stone looking turretted Prison, how all these little specks, eat, drink, sleep, pray, blow their little noses, wash their little faces, some have got corns on their little toes—some pimples on their little chins—& two of the specks strut, very upright & say they are the Lord’s anointed!—but if their teeth ake, they cry out—if they have indigestion—they send for a Doctor—& make wry faces & drink nasty stuff—they have feet so cramped, they can hardly walk because tight shoes are the fashion! They wear great pads at the bottom of their backs—because pads are the fashion–
You then walk away 3 miles & look back again—you can just see the turretted stone Castle but not a glittering speck is visible!—and yet every little speck with corns, & indigestion, & tooth ake swears the Great Creator of all things, takes especial care of each of them, so that if they get relief from colic, they go down on their knees & thank him—if they go to War they ask his blessing, that they may cut more throats than their enemies & then if they do—they thank him again, with their bloody hands, for his great mercy!
These little specks are the most conceited little specks in Creation– They are so built, they must eat, & digest[;] if they eat too much, the blood goes to their brain, & then they see things quite different from what they are!—& then they doubt & disbelieve—if they do not—the Brain sees things as they are—& then they believe & are happy—so that sometimes they write long essays to prove there is no God, when it is only indigestion—& then long Essays to prove there is—& that is only digestion—so that digestion in reality, is the cause of all the evil, & the Devil himself a personified bit of gristle, which cant get through the Colon, poor little specks, some cut their little throats, some take prussic acid—some hang themselves—some say it is their fate when it is only their conduct—and all believe they’ll go where there is no gristle[,] no indigestion, no blood in the head, no disbelief—or doubt of a God!—so these little specks die off & are succeeded by other specks.
The specks that die are buried, decay, become corruption[,] dress the ground, grow grass, feed cattle, & the specks which are the produce of the dead specks, eat often a bit of their own Parents, without being aware of it! & talk of the relish of the mutton! or beef—the taste of a ragout, or fricandeau! & then boast of the purity of their blood[,] their high descent, their birth,—their honor!
After these lamentations, put St Paul in your pocket—& you will return to Town with a true estimation of the value of Windsor Castle & its little specks[.]
Yours ever,
BRH
Address, on cover sheet: Miss B. Barrett / 50. Wimpole St.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 139–140.
Manuscript: University of Vermont.
1. “Herne, a keeper of Windsor Forest, having committed some offence, hanged himself upon an oak tree. His ghost afterwards was to be seen, with horns on its head, walking around about this oak in the neighbourhood of the castle” (England Picturesque and Descriptive, by Joel Cook, 1899, I, 232). See also The Merry Wives of Windsor, IV, 4, 28–38.
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