1593. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 294–295.
[London]
April 6. 1844.
I write directly to you, my dear Mr Westwood, to thank you for your kind note,—& your most kind wishes in behalf of my book, which I do not class apart from those of my personal friends, .. believe me. Also I am particularly anxious to explain to you that Mr Moxon is hasty in his promises, & that I was as surprised as anybody, to see the successive advertisements promise the book “in a few days”, [1] .. whereas the second proof has barely passed through my hands. If we are to conclude our work “in a few days,” we must be rather quicker, you will suggest, than we have already been. Am I of the genus snail or oyster, in your eyes? Oh, but there has been so much, so very much to do. I have been near dying by work, & my chief poem the “Drama of Exile,” by fire. Never was any poem nearer the bars of a grate, than that poem of mine!– As is common with me, after the excitement of composition, I fell straight down into a despondency .. a despair … I determined instead of printing my drama, to burn it. A legion of black devils [2] was in league against it & me—& there seemed no hope for either of us. In the midst of it all, however, my cousin, Mr Kenyon, took up the manuscript & rescued us, & did his best to persuade me, that I never did anything better before. So now it is in the press,—and I am to have two volumes instead of one—and when in the course of time (not “in a few days,” mind!) they grow into volumes, I shall solicit your acceptance of them, dear Mr Westwood, and also your candid thoughts respecting them.
Yes, the Athenæum was kind to me. But the Athenæum was not just towards Mr Horne, [3] —and this, it is right, as you have not read the book, to enforce upon you. He was very much trammelled in the work. The “proprietors” put his soul into a cage, & wd not let it fly this way, or that way. The consequence is, the work is defective in philosophy & unity. It consists of parts, without a whole. Also a very few of the articles, which are not by him, are by inferior hands. These are the weaknesses–. The strength is still more obvious to thinkers with a distinct vision, & no “forgone conclusions”: [4] and I believe, I am sure, that if you read the work, you wd at once perceive the injustice of critics who take their extracts from the historical portions, where no force was wanted or expended, & denounce generally, without extract, the elaborated critical portions. My opinion is, that the notice on Dickens, is one of the subtlest & fullest criticisms, if not the very subtlest & fullest, which ever appeared of him—and with nearly all the papers on the poets (Tennyson included) there is too much trace of thought to compute with bookmaking. As for myself, .. you are very kind to say what you do. The notice was written in very great haste, Mr Horne told me, .. & with his “head going round”—& really it is so full of the expression of personal kindness, .. so much too full, .. that I cd not have the heart to complain—if I had the head. The fault (with my friends) is, that little is said of my poetry, & too much of me .. so we must make a compromise of it.
Now I must go. I have written nonsense surely!
You will understand why I write of the advertisement. The particular reason is,—lest you shd fancy—not receiving a book, .. that I cannot mean to send you one. Now I dont choose you to fancy any such thing, even by a mistake, & for a moment. I shall do myself the pleasure of placing the volumes in your hands, whether they be worthless or worthy. In such haste!–
Ever very faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Barrett
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. See note 1 to the preceding letter. The volumes were not ready until August.
2. Cf. Mark, 5:9–13.
3. For the text of its reviews, see pp. 371–373 and 378–381.
4. Cf. Othello, III, 3, 428.
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