1729. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 170–172.
[London]
October 4 [sic, for 3]. 1844 [1]
My dearest Mr Boyd,
I must not delay longer in telling you that I was much moved by Miss Heard’s letter, & that I appreciated your kindness in sending it to me. Such testimonies are of course far dearer & more welcome to me than critical compliments from reviewers,—& I feel, in receiving them, that with all my faults & deficiencies, I may not perhaps have written nor lived quite in vain.
Perhaps you are right respecting the scriptural question,—but I have certainly heard from pulpits such an application of the “dyed garments” [2] as I ventured on– Sin was an enemy like the rest, and conquered by the Great Victor. Still it is true that the idea of triumph rather than of suffering, [3] is, under any aspect, conveyed by the image—& therefore I kiss your sword or rod. [4]
As to the ‘Lost Bower,’ I am penitent about having caused you so much disturbance. I sometimes fancy that a little varying of the accents, though at the obvious expence of injuring the smoothness of every line considered separately, gives variety of cadence & fuller harmony to the general effect. But I do not question that I deserve a great deal of blame on this point as on others. Many lines in ‘Isobel’s Child’ are very slovenly & weak, from a multitude of causes. I hope you will like the ‘Lost Bower’ better, when you try it again, than you did at first, though I do not, of course, expect, that you will not see much to cry out against. The subject of the poem, was an actual fact of my childhood. [5]
Oh—and I think I told you, when giving you the history of “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” that I wrote the thirteen last pages of it in one day—I ought to have said nineteen pages instead. [6] But dont tell anybody. Only keep the circumstance in your mind when you read it & see the faults. Nobody knows of it except you & Mr Kenyon & my own family, for the reason I told you– I sent off that poem to the press, piece-meal, as I never in my life did before with any poem. And since I wrote to you, I have heard of Mr Eagles,—one of the first writers in Blackwood & a man of very refined taste,—adding another name to the many of those who have preferred it to anything in the two volumes. He says that he has read it at least six times aloud to various persons, and calls it a “beautiful sui generis drama”. On which Mr Kenyon observes that I am “ruined for life, & shall be sure never to take pains with any poem again.”
The American edition (did Arabel tell you?) was to be out in New York a week ago,—& was to consist of fifteen hundred copies, in two volumes, as in England.
She sends you the verses, and asks you to make allowances for the delay in doing so. I cannot help believing that if you were better read in Wordsworth, you would appreciate him better. Ever since I knew what poetry is, I have believed in him as a great poet—and I do not understand how reasonably there can be a doubt of it. Will you remember that nearly all the first minds of the age have admitted his power, (without going to intrinsic evidence) & then say that he can be a mere Grub Street writer? [7] It is not that he is only or chiefly admired by the “profanum vulgus”, [8] .. that he is a mere popular & fashionable poet,—but that men of genius in this & other countries, unite in confessing his genius. And is not this a significant circumstance? significant, at least!
With regard to Miss Martineau, as Arabel has been telling me what you say, I must say something again. As far as she is a political economist, I can judge no more of her ability than I can judge of Mrs Somerville’s in mathematicks. [9] But as an eloquent writer & lucid thinker,—as possessing singular powers of description & pathos,—and as the possessor of an original & originating mind endowed with high logic & imaginative sensibility, I consider her very superior to Mrs Somerville, according to my limited knowledge of what Mrs Somerville is. In my creed, an originating mind must always be greater than a receiving mind—always!—whatever the learning may be which is received– Surely you will agree with me in this. For the rest, I have a very high respect for Mrs Somerville, & shall always be ready to express it–
I have had a letter from Mrs Jameson too—you have heard of her of course. She is a very gifted & eloquent woman. May God bless you my dearest friend. Assure Miss Heard when you write to her or see her next, of my deep sympathy with an affliction I can understand.
Believe me, yourself,
your affectionate & grateful
Elibet B B–
How kind you are,—far too kind, .. about the Cyprus Wine! I thank you very much–
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24 (a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 265–267.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. This letter is postmarked 3 October 1844.
2. Cf. Isaiah 63:1.
3. Cf. Isaiah 60:10.
4. Cf. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, 2, 59.
7. i.e., a writer of literary hack-work as coined by Dr. Johnson, after the street in London now called Milton Street.
8. “Uninitiate crowd” (Horace, Odes, III, i, 1, trans. C.E. Bennett).
9. Mary Somerville (née Fairfax, 1780–1872) was known for her scientific writings.
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