1775. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 255–259.
50 Wimpole Street–
December 3. 1844
Not a sound—not a sign!– My dear Mr Horne, tell me where you abide and what you are doing,—for I do long to hear what is called, nowadays, the “real mesmeric truth” about you– One thing is sure—that you have forgotten me—or perhaps another, .. that you wish to forget me—οτοτοτοι [1] —as my Greeks wd say!– In English, we have nothing complaining enough, though we are said, here in England, to have the spirit of grumbling. Now do be merciful, & write to me– In the meantime I am forgiving, & write to you–
Since I wrote last I have seen Miss Mitford again, & I have lately received her promise of another early visit. That is, she will come as she did before, for what poor LEL used to call the “superfelicity of talking,” [2] & stay with me from noon-tide to seven oclock p.m. Also I have seen Mrs Jameson. Do not frown. You were admitted, as far as my will went before her—only you wdnt come!—and she overcame at last by sending a note to me from the next house .. fifty one, Wimpole Street. Do you know her? She did not exactly reflect my idea of Mrs Jameson—and yet it wd be both untrue & ungrateful, to tell you that she disappointed me. In fact she agreeably surprised me in one respect—for I had been told that she was pedantic, & I found her as unassuming as a woman need be—both unassuming & natural. The tone of her conversation is however rather analytical & critical than spontaneous & impulsive,—& for this reason, she appears to me a less charming companion than our friend of Three Mile Cross, who wears her heart upon her sleeve & shakes out its perfumes at every movement. She—Mrs Jameson—is keen & calm & reflective. She has a very light complexion .. pale lucid eyes .. thin, colourless lips, fit for incisive meanings .. a nose & chin projective without breadth, .. hair .. oh, call it pale, not red!– She was here nearly an hour, & though in a first visit, I cd perceive that a vague thought or expression she wd not permit to pass either from my lips or her own. Yet nothing cd be greater than her kindness to me .. and I already think of her as of a friend.
Miss Martineau is astounding the world with Mesmeric statements through the medium of the Athenæum—and yet it happens so, that I believe few converts will be made by her. The medical men have taken up her glove brutally—as dogs might do .. dogs exclusive of my Flush who is a gentleman.
Well– Have you received my poems, & the long letter which I wrote at the same time in answer to various charges of yours?– [3] There is a note which names your name in the ‘Cry of the Children’—and, I tried to set my feeling for your genius in as prominent a light there, as I could, without involving myself in the presumption of appearing to praise you. [4] In the ‘Pan,’ you will observe that I obeyed certain of your suggestions & neglected others .. neglected some, because I did not agree with you,—& some, because I could not follow my own wishes. In fact, or rather by fantasy, that poem seemed to me to belong to Mr Kenyon. In various manners, past describing, he has lavished so much interest & kindness on it, & on me through it, that he seemed to me to have all the rights of adoption—& I shrank from acting against his advice more than was absolutely necessary– He wanted various things altered, which I altered for the most part. Here & there, however, I was obliged to resist—though only here & there, & not without pain. And when I proposed having the Greek names (on which point I do altogether in my inward soul agree with you) he spurned the idea of turning Jove into Zeus, & I had not the courage to stand by my arms. So do not think me perverse & selfwilled in the thing—but listen to the explanation. The volumes are succeeding,—your kindness will be glad to hear,—past any expectation or hope of mine. They are even selling very well, says Mr Moxon. Blackwood’s high help was much,—& Tait’s not unavailing, and the Westminster Review just now has been giving me a ‘long & a strong pull’ up the hill. [5] Then I continue to have letters of the kindest, from unknown readers– I had a letter yesterday from the remote region of Gutter Lane, beginning, “I thank thee.” And the American publisher has sent me copies of the New York edition, gorgeous in purple & fine gold, [6] & doing much credit to the typical force of the new world, as also to his own liberal spirit. And did I tell you that he had printed fifteen hundred copies? If I am a means of ultimate loss to him, I shall sit in sackcloth. The American reviews, Democratic & otherwise, are however likely enough to assist the sale, being as far as I have yet seen, extravagant in laudation. [7] On the other side of the picture .. I have not heard a word from Leigh Hunt, though I sent the volumes to him, with an inscription expressive of my grateful reverence towards him. Well—! If he had taken any notice, it wd have been a condescention,—so that his not taking any notice, shd be no surprise, I beg you not to mention this subject when Time & the Hour [8] throw you together again. I am grateful enough to him as it is, .. having, .. in addition to all former causes of gratitude, .. the present delight of reading his new critical work upon poetry. [9] The most delightful and genial of poetical critics he is assuredly. Not that I always agree with him. I have it in my head, for instance, that he knows Ben Jonson somewhat superficially, .. & underrates his lyrics immensely, & accepts the popular prejudice about his “jealousy” &c even blindly. [10] Is there a poet of England new or old, who has written so much praise of his contemporaries, as Ben Jonson? I trow not– Does that fact prove jealousy in him? I infer not.
Then Beaumont & Fletcher he is niggardly in selections from, & for a reason I do not admit—for he says that it is impossible to quote a passage longer than a very short one, without falling upon matter of offence. [11] Respectfully, I abjure the reasonableness of such a reason. —— Then again, I seriously am of opinion than [sic] even if he rejects the Christian revelation a thousand times over, he might, out of the broad sympathy of a poet’s heart, have had patience with Milton’s divinity as another form of mythology. [12] There may be ‘sectarianism’ in the very cutting off of sectarianism. I am sorry (very) for some things said, & some things left unsaid in the paper on Milton––for instance, the omission of one of the very noblest odes in the English language (that on the Nativity) [13] because––it is not on the birth of Bacchus!!– Objections like these apart, the book is, however, a beautiful book, & will be a companion to me for the rest of my life. My brother George gave it to me, as the most acceptable gift in the world. [14] Talking of books & of poetry, tell me the name of the poem you are writing! You know you are writing a poem. And when do you think of coming home. Ever—at all?– My American friends ask about your Gregory & Cosmo & Marlowe, & want to naturalise them a little more.
Mr Tennyson is quite well again, I understand. Wordsworth is in a fever about the railroad which people are going to drive through the middle of the Lake School. So excited was he, that his wife persuaded him to go from home for a time & compose his mind. He went like an obedient husband,—but he has come back again with ten fevers instead of one—and the time of his absence he spent in canvassing for members of parliament who wd not say ‘aye’ to it. Fifty have promised, he says, to protect him—although Mon[c]kton Milnes, having caught corruption from the Utilitarians, dares to oppose the master-poet front to front, and sonnet to sonnet. [15] Mr Browning has not returned to England yet.
And then I hear that Carlyle wont believe in mesmerism & calls Harriet Martineau mad. “The madness showed itself first, .. in the refusal of the pension—next, .. in the resolution that, the universe being desirous of reading her letters, the universe shd be disappointed—& thirdly, .. in this creed of Mesmerism.” [16] I wish (if he ever did use such words) somebody wd tell him that the first manifestation at least, was a noble phrenzy, which in these latter days, is not too likely to prove contagious. For my own part I am not afraid to say that I almost believe in Mesmerism, & quite believe in Harriet Martineau.
May God bless you my dear friend. Take care of yourself, & be very happy.
I am most faithfully yours,
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 165–173.
Manuscript: Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection.
1. Cf. “ὀτοτοτοτοι τοτοι.” “Alas! woe!” (Sophocles, Electra, 1247, trans. F. Storr).
2. We have not located the source of this quotation.
4. A note referring to the fourth line in the tenth stanza of “The Cry of the Children” (Poems, 1844) reads: “A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne’s report of his Commission. The name of the poet of ‘Orion’ and ‘Cosmo de’ Medici’ has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still,—however open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid in our humanity. 1844—E.B.B.”
5. Cf. “A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together” (Frederick Marryat, Jacob Faithful, 1834, ch. 12).
6. A variant binding; the standard binding of the American edition of EBB’s Poems (1844) was “yellow paper covered boards” (see A Bibliography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1967, by Warner Barnes). EBB apparently received copies of the standard binding as well since she presented one to RB; it formed lot 438 of Browning Collections and is now at Yale (see Reconstruction, A325).
7. For the text of these reviews, see Appendix III.
8. Cf. Macbeth, I, 3, 147.
9. i.e., his Imagination and Fancy (1844).
10. Leigh Hunt said that Ben Jonson’s “jealous irritability and assumption tired out the gentlest and most generous of his contemporaries” (Imagination and Fancy, pp. 195–196).
11. EBB refers to the following statement in Imagination and Fancy (p. 207): “Poetry of the highest order and of the loveliest character abounds in Beaumont and Fletcher, but so mixed up with inconsistent, and too often, alas! revolting matter, that, apart from passages which do not enter the plan of this book, I had no alternative but either to confine the extracts to the small number which ensue, or to bring together a heap of the smallest quotations,—two or three lines at a time.”
12. Possibly, EBB is referring to Leigh Hunt’s statement in the chapter on Milton that “every classical scholar, however orthodox a Christian he may be, is an honest Heathen at heart” (Imagination and Fancy, pp. 270–271).
13. i.e., his ode “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (1629).
14. EBB’s copy of Imagination and Fancy (1844), inscribed from her brother George, formed lot 779 of Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1268).
15. Milnes’s sonnet entitled “Projected Railways in Westmoreland. In Answer to Mr. Wordsworth’s Late Sonnet” appeared over his initials in The Morning Chronicle of 25 November 1844 (p. 3). It was a response to Wordsworth’s sonnet, “On the Projected Kendal and Winandermere Railway,” which had appeared in The Morning Post on 16 October 1844. Milnes’s sonnet is collected as “Answer to Wordsworth’s Sonnet Against the Kendal and Bowness Railway” in The Poetical Works of Lord Houghton (1876).
16. Kenyon was possibly the source for EBB’s information.
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