1687. EBB to Thomas Carlyle

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 99.

50 Wimpole Street

August 14. 1844.

As a stranger to Mr Carlyle, I dare not offer him the accompanying little volumes without a few words of explanation. [1] I do not offer them because they appear to me worthy of satisfying his demands for poetry,—nor because I desire to win from him, as a woman, any empty compliment for verses he may consider quite unworthy. But holding his genius and his teaching in high respect, and feeling that strong need of telling him so which comes of honest admiration,—& having, besides, written these poems, which are true, in as far as I can see & feel, to my own power of perception & sensibility; .. I do incline to hope that he may think them true enough, not to disgrace the truth with which I am

one of the most grateful of his readers

Elizabeth B Barrett.

Publication: The Cornhill Magazine, May 1915, pp. 646–647.

Manuscript: Yale University.

1. We have been unable to locate this presentation copy of Poems (1844).

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