1457. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 83–85.
[London]
Tuesday [12] Dec. 1843. [1]
My very dear friend,
You must have thought that either your abbey had passed its chimes upon me, [2] or that something worse had happened in my forgetting you. Day after day I have wished to write to you, & thought of you both by daytime & nighttime though I did not write. Forgive me. Sometimes I have not been well; & sometimes I have had so much other necessary writing to do, that I scarcely knew how to procure my manumission. And then you had the satisfaction of the last word in the Ossian argument [3] —a very great comfort, be it avowed, whether to man or woman!!–
For the rest,—although the silence seemed to say so, [4] I assure you I am not left actually dead upon the field of battle. Before I fell dead, I should want to know a good deal that I dont know yet, about dates & manuscripts. Surely the testimony of the Highland Society,—who investigated the subject with the zeal of patriots & the acuteness of antiquarians, & came to the conclusion that not a single ms was extant in the form of the Macpherson pseudo-translations,—surely, surely such a testimony is not to be overthrown by one individual hastily! [5] You see I am in the dark. This literal version you speak of, I never saw. You will admit that I cannot be expected to drop my sword to you, without further information & evidence.
“Oh—she is the most obstinate of human beings.”!! HSB.
I am very busy about my new book which will come out in the spring, but of which not a page is printed yet. [6] If you say of the poetry in it, that I am “fallen off,” or even not improved in some respects, you will avenge Ossian. My own opinion of myself is, that I have made some progress, .. that I have more strength & more variety in expression. After all it makes me tremble to think of you, & I fear, I fear, that you will not indeed like, as I would have you, my “Vision of Poets”,—since you begin with a distaste (which I do not think injust) towards the form of versification. [7] It was unfortunate, the selection of that form! But in commencing the poem I did not pre-meditate the length of it—& for a short poem, the measure is less important. I am now in the midst of another poem, the subject of which siezed on me & wd not let me go until I wrote on it. The title may perhaps be, “The first Day of Exile”,—the subject being the sorrows of our first parents when cast out, & especially the grief of Eve, under that reproach of her soul which must have afflicted her with so peculiar an agony. It is a poem in the dramatic form—a sort of Masque; & is, like Comus, in blank verse, with lyrics interspersed—and about eight hundred lines are written already. I never wrote anything so fast I think—but, after all, I am by no means sure that I shall like it well enough to print it. The dramatic persons are the Angel Gabriel, Satan, Adam, Eve[,] The Spirit of the earth & Elements,—the Spirit of the animal creation,—and perhaps the Christ. What do you think? Is it a subject susceptible of good?– Shall I do it?– Well—if I dont, I have many poems more than enough to make a book without it–
I shall take your advice about printing the ballads—but .... oh you are not serious, my dearest Mr Boyd, in suggesting the leaving out of “Flush”? Leave out Flush!!– Why for love’s sake [8] I could not do it. I shall make some alterations, & leave out a little, but the public must have an introduction to Flushie, .. to say nothing of His Highness Prince Posterity. [9]
And then again, you must excuse me from the Animal Magnetism. It is precisely because I believe in it that I am averse to having recourse to it. Do you not understand?– I shrink from this mystery which seems to consist in placing the Spiritual being, & the will, into dependence on another Spiritual Being & will, & by means unguessed at by the reason. Is there nothing in this abnegation of the personal entity, from which you yourself would not shrink?– Mary Minto who has frequently been cast into magnetic trances herself, wanted me to let her send a lock of my hair to a Chief Rabbi of the Magnetisers in Paris, that he might pronounce on the complaint of the owner, & its best remedy. [10] But I said a positive ‘no’. “How wise you were” said Mr Kenyon & Miss Mitford to me—“How foolish you were,” says Mr Boyd. But my dearest friend, would it have been wise of me to place myself in relation, for doubtful good or possible evil, with these mysteries? And then you know .. or you do not know perhaps … what a fanciful nature I am tormented by sometimes. If I had parted with that lock of hair, queen Mab wd have been with me day & night. [11] I should have seen visions & dreamt dreams. [12] And, through the thick of them, a great French disembodied Spirit would have floated,—peering about the room, & causing my flesh to creep with cold magnetic testimonies of a ‘Presence’!–
And then, do you remember the harm which all the old witches (whom I am beginning to believe in) did with a lock of hair? What charms of horror were wrought by it!
And, finally, I have read in Baron Dupotet’s & Dr Stone’s book upon Mesmerism, [13] that in cases of the chest, it will not avail—and that the spitting of blood has been brought on very violently by attempting to cast the patient into sleep– This I can believe. Because in all such cases, the circulation is too quick,—and one of the certain effects of the magnetic action, is the quickening of the pulse. This is reasonable,—is it not?—whatever that may be, on the other page, about witches.—— What a letter! The worst of me is, that whenever I begin, there is no getting to the end of me. Forgive me .. because it is the same with my friendship for you. I began with regarding you very much, and you certainly never will see the end of it–! Not that you care for that! May God bless you. I hope that Annie’s being settled so near you, may be a cause of a great deal of pleasure & comfort to you. Arabel talks of going to see you both; but just at present she has a cold.
Dearest Mr Boyd’s
affectionate & grateful
Elizabeth B Barrett
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24(a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Yale University.
1. Dated by the postmark.
2. A reference to Boyd’s interest in campanology.
3. EBB refers to a letter now missing. The last surviving exchange on this subject is letter 1212.
4. Cf. Hamlet, II, 2, 309–310.
6. Cf. Hamlet, I, 5, 47. EBB is anticipating his reaction to Poems (1844).
7. In letter 1381, EBB had expressed the fear that Boyd would find “odd” the octosyllabic triplets of the poem, which she had “not sanguinity enough to defend.”
8. Philemon, 1:9.
9. EBB did make changes when including the poem in the second volume of Poems (1844). Swift’s A Tale of a Tub (1704) was dedicated “to His Royal Highness Prince Posterity.”
11. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, I, 4, 53ff.
12. Cf. Joel, 2:28.
13. Baron Jean du Potet de Sennevoy (1796–1881), sometime editor of Le Journal du Magnétisme, was the author of An Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism … With an Appendix Containing Reports of British Practitioners in Favour of the Science (1838). Presumably Dr. Thomas Stone who contributed to the Medico-Chirurgical Review, Journal of Psychological Medicine, and other periodicals, and who was editor of the London Polytechic Magazine. We have not been able to identify any book of EBB’s description.
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