1899. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 185–188.
[London]
Monday– May– 1845
My dear Mr Westwood
I trust you will attribute my silence to the old reason of my ordinary position as a person who carries a larger bundle of sticks than he has strength for, & therefore lags & rests,—& not to any other reason under sun. I have too much to do, .. too much writing .. of letters & otherwise, .. & too little strength to do it in—& of this you are aware .. partially, at least.
The illustrations pleased me in many ways [1] —& I hope you will assure the artist from me that I never shall cease following his course along the “hard ascent,” with an eye & heart of grateful & peculiar interest. That I consider these drawings, as conceptions, at all equal to the illustrations of Spenser, I cannot say—& you are probably prepared to hear me observe the exact contrary. They certainly are not equal—& it is not wonderful that there shd be some such difference between art-work & art-work, as between poet & poet. Also it appears to me that Mr Woods succeeds better in the terrible than in the tender,—& in lions & dragons than in Onoras– But he has imagination; &, with exercise, he will learn to vary its forms. Softness is a part of strength,—but it is apt to be the most tardily developped part.
I agree with you in your preferences, exactly, I think. I shd like the first scene much,—if it were not that I find fault with the unfaithfulness,—because you must be pleased to understand that the “little son” was “playing at the ball” in my poem, instead of stroking his dogs. The last .. the heart breaking .. is full of beauty—so much so, that ballad-monger as I am, I forgive the artist for diverging from the text wherein our Onora “looketh down the garden-walk.” But I object to the death’s head under the nun’s garb, by the dreaming Onora’s bedside!! The horribleness seems to me to destroy the horror. A little dimness & indefiniteness wd have been infinitely more effective,—now wd it not? & I tried to convey it by .. “The place was filled.” But what am I saying?
Certainly I have not expressed to you one quarter of the pleasure & pride which really I felt & feel, in the consideration, that a man of genius shd have been sufficiently impressed by my ballad, to have thought of such a thing as of illustrating it by these drawings. It is a compliment of which I am proud,—& for which I remain grateful. Will you tell Mr Woods so? and will you believe it fully of me yourself?. I now return the work—& I wish I cd in any way reflect the pleasure it has given me, back upon the artist. If I can do anything for him at any time, do suffer me to be commanded. Has he followed up the Spenser work by a like one,—or had he an intention in connection with this Brown Rosary, at all?
And now my dear Mr Westwood, I am going to talk of you. I wd not for the world be a will o’ the wisp to lead you on into a place for wet feet & the ague—& I agree with you that a good deal is to be said on the opposite side of the question. Also I shd shrink from advising you to order a set of harness & be a ‘hack’ from this day forwards—you have not health for it perhaps, & I am sure you have too much sensibility. My feeling is, that you might begin gradually & partially, & try the life .. which is a life like another, .. & see whether by an hour or two’s regular work in the day in writing, (as you might write a letter to me), you wd not release yourself from any necessity of a worse kind. I mean that you might join the two sources of revenue, & so take time & be harrassed by neither occupation, & learn by experience, which you find lightest in the lifting. As for the qualification, you exaggerate it I fancy, & speak too humbly of yourself– Just examine the common run of the Athenæum reviews,—&, for the most part, there is nothing frightfully learned about them,—is there? The tact in them (which is the chief thing, .. besides what you have in ample possession) is as easily caught up as a tune. You wd creep through your first review, & run through the others.
Now when I wrote my papers for that journal, they did not appear, you know, every week,—yet in the course of three months that I wrote for it, I think I had printed the work of about thirty pounds– I know I calculated in a joke at the time, that it was a way of living, if no other shd occur. [2] Thirty pounds for three months, make a hundred & twenty pounds a year. Is’nt it so? I never cd learn the multiplication table.
And then, that was only idling on my part,—not working: it was not even a paper a week—far from it! & also, as it was not reviewing, I had not the advantage of quotations to fill up the spaces, as is done so magnificently by critics par metier. [3] And so, here, I give you my experience!
Certainly to have to write by the clock is dreadful,—& I know enough of it to admit to you that it is dreadful. But then, there is a way of avoiding this—I mean, by always keeping beforehand with one’s work—& it is possible to do so in nearly all instances.
Well—I only suggest thoughts—& since you say I am not impertinent in it, I am not impertinent. Both you & I love literature,—& it is pleasant (as I have sometimes dreamt to myself) to live by what one loves. But too much reflection & prudence are impossible in such a case—& I am half afraid of the shadow of my own counsellor’s wig as I write my counsel.
Ah—you amused me about Sordello!– [4]
Dear Mr Westwood
I am most faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Barrett
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. See letter 1881. Presumably EBB refers to the illustrations made by Westwood’s friend, Mr. Woods (see no. 1784), as well as drawings based upon her poem “The Lay of the Brown Rosary.”
2. EBB is probably referring to the articles she wrote for The Athenæum in 1842: an essay, “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets,” was published as a series of four articles from February to March; and a review and essay, “The Book of the Poets,” appeared as a series of five articles from June to August.
3. “By profession.”
4. EBB had recommended RB’s poem to Westwood in letter 1881.
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