1579. EBB to Cornelius Mathews
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 273–276.
50. Wimpole Street
[26] March. 1844. [1]
My dear Mr Mathews, you will forgive my silence for the sake of a feebleness of health which has been overmuch pressed upon this winter, by occupation. For the future you shall have a better correspondent, if indeed my writing to you oftener can appear to you a better thing—and your indulgence will help you to understand, in the meantime, how a very weak hand, such as mine is, may be overworked in the preparation for the printing of a book, until it is forced to deny itself to the claims of private letters– Also from the latter part of January to April, I am apt to be more shaken than usual by the vacillations of our English climate & the influence of the east wind—I have a heart which runs like a racehorse, leaps like a hunter, & stands still like a mule, all in the course of one morning,––so that I am sometimes forced to be quiet, & think of life death & the wind. Upon the whole, my health does improve, I think. And two summers sewn together might renew me, I fancy. But I live upon a point, .. on the spire of a church, .. liable to precipitation every instant——which is no reason, however, that I shd write so much about it.
Yes, .. it will explain how impossible it was for me to escape the mortification of refusing to see your friend Mr Welford. He wrote a very courteous letter to me when he found that I cd not see him, & amused me exceedingly by enquiring into the personal history of my relation Mr Tennyson. Leigh Hunt, he said, had intimated somewhere that he was my relation!– Now I remember that Leigh Hunt in his ‘Feast of the Violets’ (which by the way has just been republished by Moxon together with his other collected poems) had the goodness to say of me
“I took her at first for a sister of Tennyson’s.” [2]
and that poetical relationship, which after all I have no better claim to, I fear, than lies in Mr Hunt’s “gentlenesse,” is the only one existing between us– Indeed I never saw Mr Tennyson in my life. So far in reply to your question—which made me smile again. And I have thanks upon thanks for you, besides, for your kind words added to the mistake. As to the mistake, if I could make out a hundred & ninety ninth cousinship a hundred & ninety nine times removed from Alfred Tennyson, I would snatch at it, & frame my pedigree–
And now to speak of your books– [3] They are full of indications of faculty,—& prove the existence of more talent than is worked out in them. I like you best, I think, when you are serious––I speak of the prose here .. but you give evidence of variety of power. Puffer Hopkin, with talent everywhere, is everywhere (if I may say so) somewhat too equally worked up to the eye & ear, so that the unity & interest suffer from an imperfect perspective. That is my impression, through the respect which I feel for you as a writer rising & to rise. And do you know, my dear Mr Mathews, your volume of poems struck me in no ordinary way. I do not dare to give advice, .. and you might laugh me to scorn [4] if I attempted it,––but I thought several times, while I was reading that little volume of poems upon “Man,” that if I were the writer, I wd fling away my prose, & try for the bay. The poems want grace—they are rugged & obscure. There now! Listen to my Darkness complaining of your obscurity.!—but I tell you my impressions, whether I have a right to them or not. Your poems, then, are rugged & obscure—but they are more individual, .. they have more strength, fibre, bone & muscle, than any American poetry I ever read in my life. There is thought in them too,—& every now & then, we have several lines together of an admirable power, & full of unemasculated life. My impression is that if you gave yourself to poetry, you would sieze upon a success. There is stuff in you for a poet, I believe. But you must acquire, what is to be acquired, <more> softness & sweetness in the expression; & put away certain violences & vehemences, which the public are not prepared for. The Athenæum’s most unworthy notice of your books, [5] which made me as angry as the poetical criticisms in that journal generally do,––or more angry, .. on account of my personal interest in you, .. yet gave some indication that the critic felt something unusual near, in the poems on ‘Man.’ Well he might. On the other hand I agree with him that they want grace—a little harmony also. But there is a faculty in them– I hold the book in my hand, & feel that it is a book. There is a soul in it,—and a soul’s work .. and the man who did it, is a man to do more—and, I confess to you, that I wd rather have written it, than all the rest in the collection-volume, always excepting Behemoth. Will you forgive me for this candour? It is agreed, .. is it not? .. that we are to be absolutely candid to each other,—and you will make allowances for such judgments of mine as do not please you, by the consideration that I naturally prefer what pleases me, & that what pleases me depends as much on my own mental constitution & associations, as on the character of your performances. Also you will soon have an opportunity of taking your revenge upon me––——only you are far too kind for vengeance—if you think you owe me any. I see that Mr Horne has quoted your poetry in two places, in his ‘Spirit of the Age’—and I have begged him, to use any influence he has, in your favour. [6] I wish I myself were less powerless– But editors are virtuously indignant at any appearance of interference,—& I cd name one who makes a rule of cutting the throat of every author “recommended by a friend,” in order to prove his own purity. He commits a murder instantly in illustration of his virtue. For my part, I shall not stir a finger in relation to my own book, & I do not rely on one other person’s finger in the way of personal interest here in England. Mr Milnes’s “Palm Leaves” are somewhat cold & wintry, [7] as far as poetry & the imagination go, but they are full of fine thoughts & philosophy with noble expression.
I am at the end of my paper & have yet to thank you warmly & gratefully for your kind interest about the American edition of my poems, [8] to the proposed arrangement of which I accede at once. The proof sheets & preface shall go to your care through Wiley & Putnam; & perhaps you will have the goodness to see that the latter, which must be in m∙s., is correctly printed. Probably I shall have two volumes here—& Moxon is my publisher. Your American kindnesses are remembered in the deepest of my heart—& to be less unworthy of them is a better object than fame. Let me hear from you, & tell me if your own book has a triumph in its own land.
Ever yours
truly & faithfully
Elizabeth B Barrett–
Dont let me forget to tell you that Mr Horne has made a great mistake in attributing to me the dedication of Miss Martineau’s “Life in a Sickroom.” It is not dedicated to me. You will see what I mean when you read his [‘]Spirit of the Age’. The mistake has been a general one—& no foundation for it.
Address, on integral page: Cornelius Mathews Esqr / 14 Pine Street / New York / United States.
Publication: The Collector, January 1892, pp. 75–76.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Day supplied by postmark.
2. To read this quotation in context, see SD825.1. Welford’s letter is no. 1529.
3. In acknowledging receipt of them, EBB had promised her “judgment” at a later date (see letter 1471).
4. Psalms, 22:7.
5. For an excerpt from this review, see letter 1538, note 8.
6. See letter 1538 for this request. The quotations can be found in A New Spirit at II, 224 and II, 297.
7. EBB had previously made this comment to Kenyon in letter 1573.
8. EBB made particular mention of his interest and help in the preface to the American edition (p. v).
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