1763. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 233–234.
50 Wimpole Street
November 18. 1844.
I thank you my dear Mr Westwood—though I thank you for a cause of regret, while I thank you for kindness. I am concerned indeed at this failure of health & strength to which you refer,—and can only hope that the winter will touch us lightly, after the pattern of its November, & revive you like a summer– You are quiet now, I trust? You do not overwalk yourself or overdo yourself in any way, now? You are satisfied to lie by the fire, if not under the sun, & silently recollect the spirits & energies which you imprudently startled away! In the meantime we must accept what we can reach—and I thank you for the stanzas you kindly enclosed to me—“Amen, o world.” [1] There is a bitterness which does not spoil the sweetness of that! It wd be my favorite of the two, even if you did not give it to me with the graciousness of your right hand—and yet I like the other stanzas, & hear the wind roar in them. [2] I thank you my dear Mr Westwood.
And as to Blackwood you were quite wrong in supposing that it was too tough for me, & that I shrink very delicately from all such knouting. The praise was high enough to keep up my spirits—such praise, as Blackwood has not given I think, to any poetical work, for years,—as far as my own observation goes! Yes—it was natural & right of me to be satisfied—and I was satisfied, & gratified besides. Not that I take my critic to be always right—I take the liberty of appealing to my innocense frequently, on the contrary, between me & my conscience——but that, considering the good & evil together, I appear to myself to have a degree of prosperity which it wd be disgraceful not to turn into contentment. Tait is kind also: and you did not tantalize me vainly when you told me there wd be a review in the next Westminster Review. I see it announced in the advertisement.
How interested I was in your story of the loss of your dog! Nobody knows except you & me, & those who have experienced the like affections, what it is to love a dog & lose it. Grant the love, and the loss is imaginable: but I complain of the fact that people who will not or cannot grant the love, set about “wondering how one is not ashamed to make such a fuss for a dog!” As if Love (whether of dog or man) must not have the same quick sense of sorrow!– For my part, my eyelids have swelled & reddened both for the sake of lost dogs and birds—& I do not feel particularly ashamed of it. & for Flush, .. who loves me to the height & depth of the capacity of his own nature, .. if I did not love him, I could love nothing. Besides Flush has a soul to love. Do you not believe that dogs have souls? I am thinking of writing a treatise on the subject, after the manner of Plato’s famous one. [3]
A parcel has just arrived. Why, how kind of you, dear Mr Westwood, to allow me to look at your friend’s illustrations of the Fairy Queen. [4] I will not abuse the priviledge—& the book shall be returned to you soon. This is indeed very kind. But you are not unwell—that you do not write?
Ever & truly yours
EBB–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Doubtless “The World and the Poet: A Thought on Keats,” which appeared in The Burden of the Bell, and Other Lyrics (1850). The concluding stanza reads:
“Amen! to that loving deed, O World—
Amen! brave World art thou;
With thy bitter scorn for the beating heart,
And thy crown for the corpse’s brow—
Amen! O World!”
2. EBB may be referring to “The North Wind, A Fragment of Diablerie” published in The Athenæum, 17 May 1845 (no. 916, p. 488), and signed “Enfield, March 13, T. Westwood.”
3. Possibly Republic, II, 375–376.
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