1520. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 186–189.
[London]
Monday morning. [5 February 1844] [1]
My dear Mr Horne, I am taking fright about the proofs, & begin to think it wd be wiser to have no more of them, particularly as you are going out of town. No—you had better send me no more——unless I can be of use in any way in the correcting. I am secret as the first cousin of Harpocrates himself; [2] but I was born without the faculty of what is called “presence of mind”; [3] & an accident might betray us– Therefore, no proofs,—while you are out of town—unless, as I said, I can do any good in proportion to the risk of evil.
Certainly you must speak of Mrs S C Hall, & you may do so kindly & justly at once. She has written one or two novels; but the performances, she is better known by, are her miscellaneous light essays & tales, with which the periodical literature of the day is sown abundantly—& characteristic sketches illustrative of her native Ireland, of which she published a volume not long ago, in conjunction with her husband .. for there is a Mr S C Hall, be it known to you, who edits Books of Gems & Ballads, .. & even as high up as New Monthly Magazines. [4] His wife was an intimate friend of poor LEL[andon]—which reminds me of a Mrs Thomson [5] who was an intimate friend of hers also, & who also has a claim on you, both by the force of novels & of historical writing. To return to Mrs S C Hall, her Irish tales (I am turning this pen round & round to find a writeable side to it—& all in vain) her Irish tales have character & life, tenderness & softness—not power & not passion: while her miscellaneous sketches in general are graceful & womanly—& the last in the most amiable sense–
Lover, you certainly shd mention,—and as to your “five words,” [6] you deserve to be impaled upon them yourself, if you give him no more. He is a very powerful writer of Irish novels, & falls into the ranks after Banim [7] —with less passion than the latter, but more picturesque vivacity. You probably know his ballads,—which have a certain singable beauty in them, & a happy occasional fancifulness. His novels however, all of which I have not read, are the stuff whereof his fame is made—and they are highly vital, & of great value in the sense of commentary on the national character.
As to Lever .. I come to a stand. Ask Miss Mitford what she thinks of the Harry Lorrequers, & she will tell you that the right royall ‘Boz’ is nothing “at all at all” to the Lorrequers. This is one of the thousand points on which she & I “divide”, with no prospect of meeting again—for I cannot read Lever, … honestly & without affectation, I cannot. She says the reason is that she has more sympathies with men as men, .. has associated with them more closely as social men, & acquired the power of comprehending their social pleasures, better than I or women in general have found it possible to do. That is probably true—but it scarcely explains to me her admiration for this Lorrequer (or Rollicker) Lever. Over & over again have I tried to read his book,—and every time I came to the inference that he was a remarkably clever writer who was unreadable by me. Now it cannot be affectation, .. can it? in a person who never pretends to “ladylike delicacies” about the sort of books she reads. I who read the old plays & the modern French romances (behind a screen!—dont tell Mr Reade ..) cannot be hyper-super-over .. particular; & I have read Balzac’s Pere Goriot, [8] ––& have not read (could not) one of Lever’s novels. What the French call ‘material life’ is the whole life he recognizes. That life is a jest & a very loud one, is his philosophy. The sense of Beauty & Love, he does not recognize at all, except in a gross & conventional sense. The chapters, I have read of him, make my head ache as if I had been sitting in the next room to an orgy——not an orgy of the fawns, [9] oh Orion, which even I could feel the rapture of––but of gentlemen topers,—with their low gentility, & ‘hip hip hurrahs,’ & wine out of wine-coolers. The headache does of course prove the power: and, that he is an exceedingly clever writer, “nobody can deny”: [10] but he is contracted & conventional, & unrefined in his line of conventionality—and I cannot believe that he represents fairly even the social & jovial side of men of much refinement, .. or that, if he does, he shd represent them as he does, on all sides thus social & jovial. No writer can render human nature fully, who does not render the inner & spiritual life, as well as the conventional & material exterior of life– Is not this true? So much for the Lorrequers– Not having read a single volume through, & being of incompetent sympathies, my opinion is not certainly worth much. I hear some of my brothers say sometimes .. “Oh—that Lever is a capital fellow! better than Boz!–” And then I grow quite cross & make answer—“Do put away those detestable books of his, or you dont deserve to read Boz.”. “Capital fellow”, though, is just the criticism for him. He is that—& no more, I think.
Something more I wished to say to you, but cannot—perhaps could not, .. even if all this had not been written too lightly for a very earnest word to touch nearly in the sequence of it. But I must say this .. If I have appeared to you lately … at any time as I am afraid I must have done .. deficient in feeling & sympathy & consideration, .. the appearance wronged me as much as my hastiness has sometimes wronged you. You will understand– And I did not understand. [11]
May God bless you, dear Mr Horne– I am glad that the labour is nearly at an end—& that you are going out of town to finish. “To finish” makes an agreeable idea.
Ever truly yours
EBB–
Mr Mathews sends you a copyright statement from New York, which shall go to you today.
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 5. Fortess Terrace / Kentish Town.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 264–272 (in part, as 6 September 1844).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. This letter is postmarked the following day, 6 February 1844.
2. Harpocrates, the Greek version of the Egyptian sun-god Horus, was venerated as the god of silence and secrecy.
3. “Præsentia animi” (Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, V, 43).
4. Samuel Carter Hall (1800–89) was sub-editor and later editor of The New Monthly Magazine and chief proprietor of The Art-Union Monthly Journal. He edited The Book of Gems, the Poets and Artists of Great Britain (1836–38) and The Book of British Ballads (1842). “He also wrote many works in conjunction with his wife” (DNB).
5. Katharine Thomson (née Byerley, 1797–1862) wrote historico-biographical works dealing with Cardinal Wolsey (1824), Henry VIII (1826), Sir Walter Ralegh (1830) and Queen Anne (1838), as well as several novels.
6. In letter 1519, Horne had said that “Five words a piece” would do for Lover and Lever.
7. EBB had urged the inclusion of Banim in letter 1489.
8. EBB had described Le Père Goriot, published in 1834–35, as “a very painful book—but full of a moody reckless power” in letter 1091.
9. See Orion, bk. I, canto iii, pp. 35–36.
10. Cf. the words of the popular song: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny.”
11. Taken to be an oblique apology for any insensitive remarks EBB may have made about Horne’s romantic interest in the late Miss Walter.
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