1394. EBB to Benjamin Robert Haydon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 357–358.
[London]
Oct. 7th 1843.
Ah my dear Mr Haydon what are you thinking of me? That I am ungrateful beyond the “uses of this world”, [1] & that that’s the best of me?– And yet I have been very sensible to your kindnesses, & to the spirited excellencies of the two last chalk drawings which you sent me. Your chalk drawings always appear to me happy in power & expression—& these have the force of colour—& the orator’s eyes quite flash through his spectacles from the extraordinary effectiveness of a few rapid strokes– Thank you (at last) for your goodness in permitting me to look at them—and if I did not say so at first, the reason does not dishonor my capacity of thankfulness, for I have had much to write—& writing much tires me. I cant “bite iron in two” [2] as Mr Haydon can: but he must use his power after the manner of his lion; & spare– And besides I wrote last——. Only it was of course my bounden duty to acknowledge the chalk drawings.
Have you a sketch of Macauley? Did you ever see him? A friend of mine is engaged upon a sequency to Hazlitt’s ‘Spirits of the Age’, & wants Macauley’s head for an illustration; Macauley the great Balladmonger I mean. [3] You admire him I hope– You ought to do so, because his is a genius militant, after your kind—with a strong metallic ring in him,—& an active heat, & resonance of voice. If you were to paint his Poetry, you wd have to be pedantic in your anatomy, & bring out learnedly every possible sinew– No man can write a battle like Macauley. If your Duke, [4] —who can fight one pretty well,—were to try the writing of one, how cold & tame & cowardly it would seem in comparison to Macauley’s! Such is a poet’s power! to do everything better than the man who does it best!–
I shall like to hear how your Alexander prospers [5] —and whether you shall have a great work for the Exhibition which is coming.
Did I tell you that I had lost my little dog, & recovered him after three days, by a deep bribery of the dogstealers?. Do you know what it is, to love a dog & lose him—& is it in your philosophy to pardon a tear shed by woman in such a cause? I, for my part, cried away all my character for sense,—but I recovered my dog & did’nt care much. He threw himself into my arms in a mute ecstasy when he saw me again, with a full apparent consciousness of the wrongs & sorrows he had endured. [6]
How is your daughter? [7]
Ever faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Barrett
Address: B R Haydon Esqr / 14 Burwood Place / Connaught Terrace.
Publication: EBB-BRH, pp. 152–154.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Hamlet, I, 2, 134.
2. We have not located the source of this quotation.
3. Macaulay sat for Haydon in 1833 and was one of the many figures included in his depiction of “The Reform Banquet.” He was the subject of a chapter in Horne’s A New Spirit of the Age (1844), but without any accompanying portrait.
4. i.e., Wellington.
5. Commenced in December 1842, “Alexander’s Combat with the Lion” was completed in December 1843 and exhibited at the Pantheon in 1844.
7. Despite a tendency to consumption (see letters 1232 and 1233), Mary Mordwinoff Haydon, born in 1824, lived until 1864.
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