1552. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 232.
[London]
[?26] [February 1844] [1]
I have read your paper [2] with more delight & admiration than anything critical in my remembrance—your paper deserves a crown. It is only too good for the public, & will be called transcendental—which you will mind as little as you ought to mind it. As to ‘remarks’, my admiration stands in the place of them,—expressing itself in the simple assurance that I cd not desire deeper truths written more eloquently.
This refers of course & especially to the latter part of the article.
I differ with you about Wordsworth, & have suggested several phrases marginally, which with a little addition, wd set us on a level again on that ground—only you probably will not desire it.
See how it is. Wordsworth’s principle is, that nothing mean is in nature. True, as nature herself! You say—To Wordsworth alone, it is true: if anybody else calls a daisy noble, he is an imitator ‘by that sign’. [3] The daisy is a mean flower to all the world except William W–
In which you are wrong, O Orion (I wa[i]ve the ceremonials as commanded!) —Because that daisy under the heel of a clown, has a lesson, .. if sought for .. yes, & a lesson “apostolical” for the clown .. though he never heard of the master. [4]
If you had confined yourself to a reproof of the cant of the naturals .. who because buttercups are not mean, will see nothing in nature except buttercups, & mimic the master’s emotion as they look between the petals—if you had denounced this cant as cant—as feeling at second hand—which is not feeling but cant & only more morally innocent (not less fatiguing) than that of Byron’s imitators with their broken hearts instead of neckcloths .. then I shd agree .. cry .. go with you altogether– But .. no time .. you see!
Ever yours
EBB
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 35–38 (in part).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Dated by the preceding letter, in which Horne says he will send the proof and have his messenger wait for it.
2. Horne wrote across the top of the page: “After reading my article on ‘Festus’.”
3. i.e., the sign of the cross, seen in the sky by Constantine the Great.
4. Horne makes reference to Wordsworth’s joy in “the meanest flower that blows” and quotes from “To the Daisy,” a flower that, to Wordsworth, has “a function Apostolical” (II, 284–286).
___________________
