1588. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 287–288.
[London]
April 3. 1844
My very dear friend,
You are to understand, if you please, that if Occy finds it possible to go to see you tomorrow & goes, his intention is not to take a lesson in architecture from you, but to show his sense of your kindness of desiring to be the means of his instruction. It was very kind in you,—and it is only right that he shd acknowledge the value of the kindness. And now, to go on to my poor ‘Pan’.
He has come to life again. My Critic [1] would not accept any compromise; & said so much of the pain I shd give him by keeping to my resolution, that I was forced to give way. So ‘Pan’ will be published, either in the first or second volume, .. & without his horns being broken off in the first place. [2] I cannot accede to the breaking of the horns—although perhaps, after all, the critic would appear to you right, & the poet wrong. Only the poet is obstinate on this one point .. no, these two points .. of the horns.
In relation to Mrs Smith, I am embarrassed how to express myself. She is very good & kind in taking any interest in me, & in caring to hear either of my health or my poetry: &, having a sincere personal respect for her, I should be exceedingly loath to have the appearance of responding coldly or indifferently to a proposition coming from her. [3] Still, it is out of my power to enter upon unnecessary correspondences on indefinite subjects, .. I, [4] who have so much more to do already, than I can do without fatigue. I have been thinking only today, that I am either busy, or tired, from morning to night—& really there is no exaggeration in this. There is the writing for literature’s sake—and then, there is the writing growing up from that,—in answer to letters from persons known or unknown in relation to literature,—& then there is the writing to my personal friends whom I would not forget for all the Muses. Often & often, have I been obliged to neglect somebody dear to me,—nevertheless,—for many a post, … just because I was so tired that I could not write any more. Think how feeble I am—& how (apart from opium) I am feebler still .. incompetent, in fact, to anything: and agree with me, my dearest Mr Boyd, that it would be wrong in me, not to say out of the question, to attempt the sort of correspondence suggested by Mrs Smith’s courtesy. Miss Martineau wrote to me six weeks ago, begging me to send her a minute account of this, & this, & this, … naming such & such things. I acknowledged her letter by a brief note, & promised to write at length soon. Well—I have not written yet––I, with my earnest admiration of Harriett Martineau, & with a full heart for her kindness to me! I could not write—I have not had time! Now you see how it is! You will make apologies for me to Mrs Smith! explaining that if she has, at any time, anything definite to ask of me, I shall be happy always to receive a letter from her, & also to answer it. It is only the entering upon a correspondence with indefinite objects & therefore without end, that I am forced to decline—thanking her, however, for the honor she proposed to confer on me.
And now my very dear friend, I have passed my bounds in writing a letter to you– No wonder that you wished to establish a conduit for my epistolary superfluities, under the name of Mrs Smith!
Most affectionately yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 260–261.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. Written in large, bold hand, “My Critic” probably refers to Kenyon, whose opinion regarding the printing of “A Drama of Exile” was decisive; EBB had said in letter 1390 that he thought “The Dead Pan” superior to anything she had written previously.
2. EBB means to ignore criticism of some aspects of the poem; Miss Martineau, for example, had expressed disquiet over references to Christ (see letter 1345). “The Dead Pan” was the final work in the second volume of Poems (1844).
3. EBB explains this proposition in letter 1590.
4. Underscored twice.
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