1459. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 89–90.
[London]
December 13th 1843
Thank you, my dear Mr. Horne. Your note amused me extremely. And I am very glad, since you excite me to disinterested virtue by seeming to expect it, that you have a month’s more ‘leave’ for the book. It was certainly most hard upon you to be pressed into press by such thumbscrewing!—but the two volumes were resolved on long ago, were they not? Miss Mitford told me of them a month since.
As to music and poetry, I knew perfectly well how it was—although I asked you the question. ‘Orion’ is something more than playing on an instrument—it is composition in the manner of Beethoven, who was a poet if ever there was one. What you say of ‘comparisons’ has truth in it: and yet, do you not know, that the metaphysicians declare the impossibility of discovering any object or even straight line, without two colours? and the analogy is favourable to the use of comparisons. Moreover, Plutarch & Mr Horne have had frequent recourse to them. [1]
But there is another reason why Poetry should not be compared with the other arts—i.e., because Poetry contains them all. Is this not true? & this for a poet to prefer being a musician (even in the great composing sense) is an inconsequence of reason as well as an ingratitude of genius which I never seriously attributed to you, although somebody made affidavit to me that it was so in fact, & that you did’nt care much about poetry after all, .. not you! And you, the poet of Orion!– It was monstrous on the face of it!– Only if people will play like Orpheus, other people’s ideas of them will be apt to grow bewildered in the running underwood—entangled in the branches—lost in the shadows. [2] And I think I have heard that you compose as well as play on harp, lute, sackbut, dulcimer, & all manner of instruments.
Mr Reade!– This dagger!
After all I am not a “good hater” [3] —have not I do assure you (& you may think the worse of me for it, perhaps!) a single personal animosity in the world—& also I am tolerably good tempered .. that is .. I never threw the chairs about the room in a passion since I was eleven years old,—therefore altogether, it is easy for me to comprehend that your friend, albeit a foe of mine, is one of the most amiable & cultivated men in the world; & to pardon him heartily for .. my having displeased him. “Liberté, égalité, ou la mort!–” [4] We may each think as we like of each other’s poetry, & no harm done to either. My objection however to certain volumes, is not so much that they are Mr Reade’s, as that they are not his. [5]
I am so glad, that you have Tennyson’s portrait. [6] Do you know that he is not at all in good health just now? I heard it the other day with great regret.
Do you want ‘an opinion’ upon Monckton Milnes? or have you had enough of me? I admired his first volume very much—but his later poetry seems to want fire & imagination, & to strain too much at the didactic. His poetry for the people, is poetry for the sages & deficient, it strikes me, in all popular qualities. And then that exquisite “Lay of the Humble,” which I was praising lately, & which affected me much at the time I read it, (it appeared in the first volume) somebody told me the other day that it was not original. Taken from the German, I think they said it was. Do you know? I wish I knew. It is very beautiful in any case. [7]
Blackwood gave a paper (i.e. review) once, between Mr Milnes & me, & I was very proud of the association. [8]
Oh,—for thee!– You understand how to write a satisfactory letter, Mr Horne—and beware!—for I shall remember it.
Faithfully (in the meantime)
Your privy councillor
EBB–
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 5. Fortess Terrace / Kentish Town.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 200–205.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Plutarch constructed his Lives as a series of parallels, comparing and contrasting a Greek notable with a Roman. Horne also paired personalities in some chapters of A New Spirit.
2. Orpheus had such mastery of the lyre that, while he played, rivers ceased to flow, savage beasts were tamed, and the very mountains moved to hear his melodies.
3. EBB repeats a remark she made in relation to Victoria in letter 1451 (see note 5 thereto).
4. “Liberty, equality, or death!”
5. Yet another reference to Reade’s reputation for plagiarism.
6. Laurence’s portrait of Tennyson, included in A New Spirit of the Age, is reproduced facing p. 271.
7. This was included in Milnes’s Poems of Many Years (1838); there was no indication that it derived from a German source.
8. EBB had mentioned this review (in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, August 1838, pp. 268–284) in letters 657, 658 and 659. The portion relating to EBB is reprinted in vol. 4, pp. 379–382.
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