1622. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 7–9.
[London]
Friday night 10 oclock. June 7. 1844.
Thank you, my dear friend, for your note, which has set me at ease. We are agreed I hope, absolutely. It is [1] “better not to do much to the article”—and it is still better not to do anything.
The ‘Dead Pan’ is not put into print yet. Am I to wait till he is in print (& he has his place in my second volume, which I have just begun to print) or are you not afraid of my manuscript? If you care to see him directly, say so—otherwise I shall wait for the proof for you.
And now I am going to tell you what I write tonight with the especial desire of telling you. I think it not only possible but probable that you may dilate to your apprehension, with too extreme a sensitiveness, the depreciations of the world. It is an odd sort of world—not over-kind & generous & grateful,—& we need not expect too much from it. Still we may take over-depressing views of it sometimes. For instance, you fancy that Mr Serjeant Talfourd takes upon himself to be discontented with what you say of him. I know to the contrary. He was heard to say a very few days ago, … speaking of poets or dramatists, .. I scarcely am sure of the definite subject … “There is Horne who is worth twenty of them! A true man of genius he is! But he has written a book called the “New Spirit of the Age” which is likely, I fear, to do him a great deal of harm. I am quite satisfied with what he says of me in it—indeed he has said more than I had any reason to expect. [2] But with other people it is different,—& I hear a great many complaints.”
Those were the very words (as far as I can recollect the words repeated to me, & as far as my informant was correct) .. used by Mr Talfourd. He seemed to be perfectly satisfied personally. And if he was not, I must say he was an unreasonable man.
As to Dickens, I have nothing to observe, .. except my own wonder. Only as you have mistaken Talfourd’s mind, you may have mistaken his besides. “A great many complaints,” there will of course be. You have not always wadded your bludgeon; & you meant to give occasion for “a great many complaints,” in particular cases! And, generally speaking, the whole service was a service of danger, for obvious reasons.
And now we must admit that you have not quite crowned Bulwer up to his right. Bulwer is a man of genius, & your praise is cold. If I were Bulwer, I shd not be satisfied,—& as I am not Bulwer, I may say so.
I am almost sorry at what you tell me about Robert Montgomery—sorry, in my sympathy for you. It is abashing to find a man morally noble, whom for whatever excellent reasons, we have been decrying intellectually.
But is he morally noble? In the preface to his ‘Luther’, in which he replies generally to the remarks of the critical press, the tone is of the ignoblest & worst––audacious without dignity, violent without power, virulent without the strength of a sarcasm. [3] Still he may be better out of print—only if I were you, I shd certainly, for the convenience of my own feelings, avoid the intercourse. For the rest, I wish that article out of the book, .. I certainly do. I venture to fancy that it is comparatively & on the whole—a weak point, & better away from the point of sight.
What do you mean by “complaints” being “hitherto on the safe side of the friendship”? [4] I do not understand. You do not mean that anything which anybody could choose to say of your paper on me, .... that any possible, & imaginable imaginary comment on it .. cd affect the friendship which subsists between us. Why if the paper itself had been as unkind as it is kind—& cordial, .. even in such a case, .. my part of the said friendship cd scarcely have been affected … except by the natural pain.
How kind you have been to me for years! Do I not remember it? Could I forget it?–
Try to keep up your spirits about the book. I really think (as I have told you already) that you fancy more harm than exists. Miss Mitford comes to town on Monday for a week—Not to this house.
Most truly yours
EBB–
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 5 Fortess Terrace / Kentish Town.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 258–264 (in part, as 9 June 1844).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Underscored three times.
2. In the previous letter, Horne had expressed the fear that Talfourd was one of those who felt that “the faults mentioned [in A New Spirit] were injurious.” John Kenyon was probably the source for EBB’s information.
3. Montgomery’s preface to Luther: A Poem (1842) ran to more than 100 pages.
4. EBB quotes from the previous letter.
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