1597. Thomas Westwood to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 299–300.
[Enfield]
[?12] [April 1844] [1]
P.S.
I have just finished the second volume, dear Miss Barrett, & my fingers itch to tell you that I am quite positively sure that you are in more pages of the book than those headed by your name– Now I don’t want you to say “yes” believe me, or even to let so much as the cat’s whiskers peep out of the bag, for the cat mews so audibly in the bag, that its being there is less a matter of faith—than of certainty. Why there is a passage in the Tennyson article beginning with—“the name of Alfred Tennyson is pressing slowly” [2] &c. which is yours beyond a doubt– —In the Carlyle notice there is the same internal evidence, & what makes me more settled in my belief is that in the paper on yourself, written confessedly by Mr Horne, there is no trace of this style whatsoever. [3]
Sooth to say these passages stand out from the rest with such unprovoking freshness & originality that one cannot help wishing the same writer had done the whole– And yet that is an ungracious wish, for it implies the omission of those few words about yourself, which brief as they are, we could ill spare. Yes—they are kindly written, but that is no marvel, seeing that Mr Horne knows you. Kindly written—but too soon ended. It gave me pleasure to read them, but I could not help feeling disappointed notwithstanding—for, as I told you some time ago, I counted on a fuller & abler criticism. And now shall I show you my cat, telling you the first thought that occurred to me after reading that paper– —So she “lives in constant correspondence with many of the most eminent persons of the time,” [4] & yet writes to————me—and it was a grateful pulse, dear Miss Barrett, that throbbed with such hearty good will, at the sending of that thought.
Now you must look upon this as literally a postscript—just slip it into the other envelope, & then, you know, you will have nothing to answer.
Ever Sincerely yours
T. Westwood.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This letter follows no. 1596 and precedes EBB’s reply of 15 April (letter 1598).
2. A New Spirit of the Age, II, 5, and our Appendix IV, p. 360.
3. Westwood’s conjecture was correct; see pp. 353–367 for EBB’s specific contributions to the papers on Carlyle and Tennyson.
4. Op. cit., II, 132.
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