1696. EBB to Henry J. Owen
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 111–113.
50 Wimpole Street.
Saturday. [24] [August 1844] [1]
My dear Mr Owen
Indeed you must let me thank you for your kind letter,—& for your suggestions, which if they are not critical, are infinitely better. My only objection is, to your apparent doubt between a friendly freedom & a cruel etiquette,—although you must, after all, be keenly aware that in marrying Angela, (pardon me for reminding you of your misfortunes!) you married into a full & true & recognized cousinship to Ba, besides other evils. As it is too late to call to the rescue, I venture to recall this circumstance to your recollection, & to beg you to let it stand there as a recognized fact for the future. For the rest, dear Angela’s kind letter to me made me feel sure that both of you would receive in kindness the only part of me which is able to walk out into the world with a firm foot– There is still another part, which, though obliged to live on in seclusion & silence, can follow you & yours with affectionate thoughts & prayers, .. & will, .. while the earth is its dwelling-place.
You will easily believe that the gratification I had in the offering of the dedication was greater than any to which I ministered, .. however kind & tender the latter might be. I have been the cause of pain & anxiety more than of any pleasure, to my beloved Papa, for long; & to give him a movement [sic] of gladness even upon one occasion, .. was something very precious in its reaction on my heart. This you will understand in a moment: and it will not break that analogy which you suggest to me, of the Heavenly order & sweetness, into whch may God bless us!
As for criticism, I am prepared for a good deal of hard endurance. When we escape from models, we are apt to be cried out against as mannerists,—it is the Scylla & Charybdis [2] of poetry in our days. Not that I mean to say I am quite innocent of the charge of mannerism, or at all innocent, any wise: I am within reach of the critics, & liable to their “gentleness,” I know very well. Also they treated me in my ‘Seraphim’ quite as kindly as I deserved—and therefore it does not become me to be making impertinent speeches about them now. Moreover it is my belief that whatever they may say, poetry will live or die by its own life or death set in it,—& that, to use the common phrase, “it will be all the same to the verses at the end of a hundred years.” [3] And who are we who talk of a hundred years?–
Dear Mr Owen, I have lived so much beyond my own expectation, & seem to be growing so into life & strength, instead of fading back from either, that I cannot but think sometimes I may be intended to take up again this thread of life & go on with the woof. If it is so, may we have more intercourse than we have yet had. It seems strange, & I shd not have believed it if it had been prophecied to me years ago, that we & the dear Bayfords under different forms & transforms, should live for years close by each other, yet scarcely ever look into each others’ faces or touch each others’ hands. It seems strange, monstrous, & unnatural. It must be wrong, & very wrong. There are no “hous[e]hold cares or duties” [4] fit to account for such “a deed without a name”. [5] That is my exact opinion. Why, not a week shd pass, without intercourse——& see how it is!– You will say that I am aspiring to ideal perfection——or dreaming dreams with Swedenborg. Not a week!!!
After all it will cost me a struggle to see my dearest Angela,—& that, for the very sake of the love I bear her.
May God bless you both & all! That He may bless you fully, as God & Father, in Earth & in Heaven, is the prayer of
Your affectionate friend & cousin
Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Written after the publication of Poems (1844), but prior to a visit from Angela Owen on 29 August (see letter 1709).
2. i.e., the classical figures representing two equal dangers.
3. Cf. “The Careless Gallant; or A Farewel to Sorrow,” line 4, in The Bagford Ballads (1675).
4. We have not located the source of this quotation.
5. Macbeth, IV, 1, 49.
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