1576.5. John Kenyon to EBB
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 8.
Southsea
March 23 [1844]
My dear Cousin
I have to thank you for the letters and the Palm leaves—returned—and for another of your always over-kind notes– Like you I think the dissenters acted unwisely on the Education question—and like you I think about Milnes’s palm leaves—which I am reading here– But spite of their want of poetry—their sense pleases me and teaches me–
I hope you are getting over your not little vexations! These little things are great to little men. And therefore I will not attempt to console you by the speech of a lady—a friend of mine—to another—who was suffering as you are under the thought of parting with a servant. “My dear—there are as good fish in the sea—as ever were caught.”– And I particularly wish you my very dear Cousin to be better. (I always use these more affectionate phrases when I am going to vex and irritate) because I am going to teize you about your poems. So be prepared to be in a most furious passion with me and to forgive me after all.
First—before I begin to teize you—which teizing is to be about Pan (like Mr Pickwick’s hard words—“all done in the performance of a duty to society”—for certainly I do hold the Pan to pertain to society– My pet Pan indeed—but no less universal Pan—& linked with the Graces.”—) before I do this let me suggest about your preface—that the part of your preface which is to relate to heading Miltonic ground &c—and which you will do as well as you can, that is, better than any one else could do it, may well be the same in the English and American Editions– You need not take double trouble—and if you did—you would always like the one execution more than the other—and that one you would desire to be the only one.
Also—if you are to come out this spring, as I hope you will—or early this summer—you should write this preface—which may be very brief—soon—that our American friends may have it soon enough to bring out their Edition before the English one—to protect it–
I suppose you must ascertain accurately when the American Edition can be out—and even if you are obliged to wait on their account—which I suppose you must—before you publish the English Edition—there will be no great |lasin| in it– We mean your lady Muse to live to a good old age—and it is of no great consequence whether the hiss in her teens comes out a little sooner or later. Again for the name of the Poem of Poems—not my poem of Poems—that shall be Pan—but your’s & the Public’s. Pause dear Coz—before you call it “Masque or Mysterie”—and think of the title which I think you yourself suggested—“A Drama of Exile.” I do not object to Masque or Mysterie because subject to an irony– “A Masque—no doubt—not to say a Masquerade”!!– “A mystery indeed!!” We could stand all that &, in the fulness, of your faith, might not quite dislike a moderate martyrdom—but the word Mystery would sound affected– And I think the word “Masque” whatever it might have signified—has come to be unsuitable to such “high Argument” how the word Drama is not only free from these objections—but suggests—or coupled with your preface—may be made to suggest an analogy with the Greek Drama—while from it in one way assumes. “Drama of Exile” sounds like serious work– It is vague enough to excite curiosity—it is particular enough to apply to the subject in hand. Have you any objection to the title which has not occurred to me?
Now about Pan—I have brought it down here and read it over two or three times—twice to a friend. I am not going to teize you about single words—but I very much wish you to reconsider some of the last stanzas– I hold that the Author’s judgment ought to be the final one—but that does not prevent my “performance—a la Pickwick—of my private and public duty.” I decidedly think that the Poem should close at—[“]And secure his Beautiful.” And I have hardly met anyone who is not of that opinion—not that I attach a great value to other opinions, unsupported by argument, except as grounds for meditation & one’s own judgment.
I think then that your three last Stanzas (—supposing them to be good Stanzas—which I think they are not—at least two of them) are expletive—that they add nothing– I know that Miss Martineau and others think otherwise– But I do not know how far they have looked at the whole poem—and how far they have been swayed by considering them as good and true and proper—not considering whether they are proper here–
To be proper—they should be good poetry—(but that they do not strive to be)—or good logic—that is, true thought in appropriate language, which I think they are not, and that not being so—in my opinion—they weaken & injure the Poem– Let me try rapidly to make out my point—“Our Aspiration yearns &c”–
I never met any one who did not stop and think at this line & then go on with a sort of unsatisfied look– “I think yearns is not—after all the word.” [“]Guesses at but half we be”—would I think more clearly bring out what your meaning is— “Smoother” This will never do– It is a word you would never have accepted in prose, and is plainly only brought in but to match “other.” God’s song is not smooth– No more than high poetry—high morality—high philosophy is smooth—no more than high tragedy is tear-shedding—God’s song is not meant to be agreeable—not made to tickle the fancy—it is enobling—lofty—“Smooth word”—“smooth speeches”—“smooth verses”—are always used in a deprecating sense–
Waller was smooth—but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse—
The long resounding march & energy divine”—in fact the truth is that in any allowable meaning of the word—God’s song is not smoother than the [“]tales we tell each other.” In these stanzas you quit the domain of fancy and poetry and become a logician—and must be tried by the strict rules of logic and of language—the jus et norma loquendi—if you do not come up to these you fail. Observe, I beg you that I am not objecting to these stanzas on the ground of their being religious poetry—“at all—at all”—but of imperfect execution–
“All of praise, the best and boonest—I object to all this—All of praise must include the best and boonest—& therefore there was no need to specify—and if All praise is to endure—a portion—the best & boonest will endure longest– You might have been justified in the specifying—if you had had to say, “man the most insignificant shall endure”—than for the word praise itself– The text does not justify its usage to me—What Greek word the translator rendered by praise I know not—or if in his time praise & praiseworthy were one—but in our sense all praise does not endure—the praise given to Nero—to Caesar Borgia—to Louis 14—and they were all praised in their time—does not endure– And “boonest” is plainly only brought in as a rhyme to soonest & honest. But I object most to the want of logical truth– If the stanza stands—Would not—the want of logical truth as to “the best and boonest”—dear EBB. something like this—be better–
Cling to true & just & honest—
Cling to lovely & to pure—
Falsest fancies fade the soonest—
These forever shall endure—
These are themes &c—
All that I have to object to in the last stanza is the word whole– We have as yet had no question of “Whole or parts”—so as to give a precise application to the word “whole.” It seems lazily brought in for the sake of the Rhyme—and is on that account unpleasing—and your last stanza should be perfect– This stanza may be added to “the secure his Beautiful,” but I think as to no good effect– Schiller’s poem is felt to apply to the prevalence of the “Beautiful” in the two Antagonistic religions—and I think with that reference yr beautiful poem ought to end– For the more I look at it—the more beautiful & powerful I think it—the more I am struck with its richness—its classical facility—its Dantesque painting– I cannot bear that you should take it out of its own high poetical region to make it goody– The Antagonist stanzas must not admit such carelessness as “boonest” & smoother– And this brings me to the Stanza—“Christ hath sent us down the Angels—”
I object to this Stanza in toto because it attempts to oppose to the Beauty and picturesqueness and poesy what of the Pagan Creed is utterly unable to contend with it—that is to say the merely scenic—theatric part of our religion or rather of the Roman Catholic religion. Again, I have never met a reader who has not objected to the “Candles”—and I think properly—not as a familiar word—more particularly to me, who love familiar words & things—who love the blankets of the dark—the “Silver lining on the night” and more because they are familiar—but because the Candles are at best, the most ones gain part of their ritual—mean—as being mere forms when lit in sun light as they are lit—mean (if you will allow me to descend to matter of fact) as being cheateries—small real candles stuck in great apparent candles—like gas let thro’ mock forms of wax lights—as at the theatres—and mean as compared with the incense—the music—the lofty roofs—the pictured forms—which would be fitter exponents—addressed to the imagination—But the Greeks had all these—and Priests too—whom we are willing
to fancy at least far
more impressive than our dirty linened priests of Rome—Would you in imagination compare a red-legged Cardinal, tho it should be sans aloi to a priest of Delphi—without saying that it is somewhat of a poetical exaggeration to say that the whole earth & skies are lit up with any quantity of candles—without stopping to say that it is hardly even poetically true that a priest’s hand “waves calm and consecration over the whole Creation, unless you take the word Creation in a very limited sense—these Candles—these priests, taken at their grandest, are but poor compensations for Parnassus and Idas tops—and Dodona’s grove—swinging to the tempest only—and sudden facts—striking a glory thro’ the Mist—If nothing of a stronger Antagonism can be produced, I need no more than this stanza and your own preceding pictures to tell me that Schiller was absolutely right. But he was not so absolutely right—And his real material and visible—Apollo and Jove treading the Earth—and Eura—and the old Pluto snatching away his bride from the very field where men walked—these must be opposed I should think by the great invisible spiritual power—not by the candles & the Priest—but by Him “The great unseen, who thro’ Creation “Waveth calm & Consecration” Our Roman Catholic Religion in its highest state does not supply any worthy antagonism to a common bas relief of ancient worship—As I have heard it said a dozen times at St. Peters—and felt it myself still more “These things would be better done at Covent Garden”—and our Protestant Religion will not allow them but in moderate degree and the Dissenters still less–
—I very much doubt whether you will read me thus far—but if you have—believe that my Love for the Poem is in fault—I have not the slightest doubt but that it would be freed from much that is defective—and something too that is overmuch—if you—left out altogether the three last Stanzas—and the Stanza—containing the candles & the Priest—(which if you pleased you might supply with another—tho—as I think not wanted) I would put them thus—these beautiful stanzas—particularly the first & the bold last–
By your beauty which confesses—
Earth outgrows the mythic fancies
Truth is fair—
& secure His Beautiful—and there I would end the Poem of Poems as I end this long letter—Now dear Coz—I do not ask you & do not wish to know what you have done till the Book comes out– So God bless you–
John Kenyon—
This is miserably scrawled with bad pens and will require all your patience and good nature.
You have—I hope—received Miss Martineau’s letter—which I found & sent ordered to come to you.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
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