1782. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 269–270.
[London]
Wednesday morning. [11 December 1844] [1]
I thank you my dear cousin, & did so silently the day before yesterday, when you were kind enough to bring me the review & write the goodnews in pencil. I should be delighted to see you (this is to certify) notwithstanding the frost,—only my voice having suffered, & being the ghost of itself, you might find it difficult to hear me without inconvenience. Which is for you to consider, & not for me. And indeed, the fog, in addition to the cold, makes it inexpedient for anyone to leave the house except upon business & compulsion. Oh no—we need not mind any scorn which assails Tennyson & us together. [2] There is a dishonour that does honor—& “this is of it.” [3] I never heard of Barnes– [4]
Were you aware that the review you brought, was in a newspaper called ‘The League,’ & laudatory to the utmost extravagance—praising me too for courage in opposing “war & monopoly”? the “corn ships in the offing” being duly named? I have heard that it is probably written by Mr Cobden himself, who writes for the journal in question, & is an enthusiast in poetry. [5] If I thought so to the point of conviction, .. do you know I should be very much pleased? You remember that I am a sort of (magna) chartist—only going a little farther–!
Flush was properly ashamed of himself when he came up stairs again, for his most ungrateful, inexplicable conduct towards you: & I lectured him well,—& upon asking him to “promise never to behave ill to you again,” he kissed my hands & wagged his tail most emphatically. It altogether amounted to an oath; I think. The truth is that Flush’s nervous system rather than his temper, was in fault,—& that, in that great cloak, he saw you as in a cloudy mystery. And then, when you stumbled over the bellrope, he thought the world was come to an end. He is not accustomed, you see, to the vicissitudes of life. Try to forgive him & me—for his ingratitude seems to ‘strike through’ [6] to me,—& I am not without remorse.
Ever most affectionately yours
EBB–
I enclose Mr Chorley’s note which you left behind you, but which I did not see until just now. You know that I am not ashamed of ‘progress’– On the contrary my only hope is in it. But the question is not there .. nor, I think, for the public—except in cases of ripe, established reputations, as I said before– [7]
Address: John Kenyon Esqr / 40 York Terrace / Regent’s Park.
Publication: LEBB, I, 223–224.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to the review of Poems (1844) which appeared in The League for Saturday, 7 December.
2. We are unable to clarify this reference.
3. We have not located the source of this quotation.
4. Perhaps William Barnes (1801–86) whose Poems of Rural Life, in the Dorset Dialect appeared in 1844.
5. We have been unable to find any evidence to verify that Cobden was the author.
6. Cf. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, 1, 39.
7. Perhaps Chorley’s note contained criticisms of EBB’s Poems (1844).
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