1477. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 123–125.
50 Wimpole Street.
December 31. 1843–
Dear Mr Westwood I am sorry that my carelessness shd have led you into the supposition of a mystery in the matter of the Wordsworth article. If I did not answer the question you thought it worth while to ask me, the cause was my forgetting all about it,—& there was not a deeper cause. You will find my review of Wordsworth’s last volume in the course of the Athenæum of last year,—which number I cannot tell, but soon after the last of the papers on the English poets, I think,—& serving as a sort of corollary to that subject, upon the editor’s suggestion. For I need scarcely explain to you that I hold no office of reviewer to the Athenæum & have no power of any kind to exercise in it, and differ indeed very widely from the poetical decisions usually adopted by its writers. If you find the paper I was invited to write upon Wordsworth, you will see to which class of your admiring or abhorring friends I belong– Perhaps you will cry out quickly——“To the blind admirers, certes.” [1] And I have a high admiration of Wordsworth. His spirit has worked a good work, & has freed into the capacity of work, other noble spirits. He took the initiative in a great poetic movement, and is not only to be praised for what he has done, but for what he has helped his age to do. For the rest, Byron had more passion & intensity—Shelley more fancy & music—Coleridge cd see farther into the Unseen—and not one of those poets has insulted his own genius by the production of whole poems such as I cd name of Wordsworth’s—the vulgarity of which is childish, & the childishness vulgar. Still, the wings of his genius are wide enough to cast shadows over it’s [sic] feet—and our gratitude shd be stronger than our critical acumen. Yes—I will be a blind admirer of Wordsworth’s– I will shut my eyes & be blind. Better so, than see too well for the thankfulness which is his due from me.
And now, dear Mr Westwood, I hasten to say gratefully to you that you must not think of sending me your book, and that in mentioning the advertisement to you I never meant to suggest such a thing indeed. Thank you for having entertained the thought—but I can buy the book & shall have interest enough in it to do so ungrudgingly, believe me. All sorts of prosperity I wish to this new book of yours! I appreciate the sentiment upon which the publication turns,—and although the hinge gives out a sound of sadness, a door will open to the admission of many pleasantnesses, thereby, I cannot choose but hope. Ah—and you are about to part with your friends again!– Then the re-union I congratulated you on .... not so long ago it seems, .. is at an end already? Shall you be quite alone afterwards?– See how it is with me! I do not know even the names of these friends of yours—and yet I have built up, out of little hints here & there along your letters, an idea of a nest of friends at Enfield—friends “affectionate & true,” [2] .. reading one another’s books & mending one another’s thoughts!—and now this pleasant idea is to be broken into bits for the second time,—& I feel it quite personally as a hard case!– And besides they are my friends in a fashion,—are they not? I think so, when I hear they think kindly of me.
With thanks I return the verses of your artist friend. It is a pretty fancy, & gave me pleasure to read. If he ever completes the honor he began to do me, you encourage me into hoping that I may behold as well as hear. But alas! who can be expected to wander in familiar sympathy with Spenser, & then come back to me? [3]
Yes—I mean to print as much as I can find or make room for—Brown Rosaries & all– I am glad that you liked Napoleon—but I shall be more glad if you decide when you see this new book, that I have made some general progress in strength & expression. Sometimes I rise into hoping that I may have done so, & may do so still more.
This poet’s work is no light work. This wheat will not grow without labor, any more than other kinds of wheat—and the sweat of the spirit’s brow is wrung by a yet harder necessity. [4] And, thinking so, I am inclined to a little regret that you shd have hastened your book even for the sake of a sentiment. Now you will be angry with me.
But Flushie is not angry with Flossie—no, nor cool! & you are not to fancy so. Flushie likes conversation too. If I say, as sometimes I do when he & I are together,—he looking into my face with his great glistening eyes, .. “Dear Flushie”, .. instantly he kisses my hand .. & again & again he does it every time I repeat the “Dear Flushie.” And if I say “Naughty Flush,” he cries—moans to himself,—& throws such a melancholy into his face, that I shd know how sorry he was, without any moaning at all. Is not this sensitive for a dog? Is there any wonder that I shd leave coffee for him in my cup, and divide my bread & butter between him & me? The only time almost that we quarrel seriously, is when I have, as happens sometimes, a parcel of new books to undo & look at. He likes the undoing of the parcel, being abundantly curious; but to see me absorbed in what he takes to be admiration for the new books, is a different matter, & makes him superlatively jealous. I have two long ears flapping into my face immediately from the pillow over my head, in serious appeal. Poor Flushie! The point of this fact is, that when I read old books he does not care!——
I send you a volume of Mr Horne’s tragedies that you may judge whether or not he may be spoken of as a man of genius. According to my impression, the Death of Marlowe and Cosmo de’ Medici are works of great power undeniably. But you will judge– On the other hand I shall be very glad if you will lend me Melville’s [sic] sermons which, I do not doubt, will please me much. [5] I have always heard him spoken of as a man of fine imagination.
As to the lines I sent you,—&, which you certainly need not thank me for, as they appeared the same day in the newspapers, I think of them precisely as you do—they might have been written by anybody, & are unworthy of the poet & the grave– [6] It was simply the interest of the connection which induced me to send them to you–
Faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Publication: LEBB, I, 160–161 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. In letter 1473, Westwood had told EBB that his friends were “either blind admirers of [Wordsworth’s] poetry, or unjust despisers of it.”
2. Westwood said, in letter 1473, that he wrote Beads from a Rosary for “certain dear & good friends.” The book was dedicated to George Woods.
3. Enclosed with letter 1473, these were by Henry Newsom Woods who had sketched illustrations for “The Legend of the Browne Rosarie” and was engaged in designs for The Faerie Queene (see letter 1388, note 8).
4. Cf. Genesis, 3:19.
5. These were acknowledged in letter 1485.
6. EBB refers to Wordsworth’s lines for Southey’s tomb (see letter 1470).
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