1918. EBB to Anne Thomson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 222–223.
50 Wimpole Street
Friday. [Postmark: 16 May 1845]
I write one line to thank you, dear Miss Thomson, for your translation (.. so far too liberal though true to the spirit of my intention ..) of my work for your album. [1] How could it not be a pleasure to me to work for you?
As to my using those m.s.s. otherwise than in your service, I do not at all think of it, and I wish to say this. Perhaps I do not (also) partake quite your ‘divine fury’ for converting our sex into Greek scholarship—and I do not, I confess, think it as desirable as you do. Where there is a love for poetry and thirst for beauty strong enough to justify labour, .. let these impulses, which are noble, be obeyed; but in the case of the multitude, it is different; and the mere fashion of scholarship among women, wd be a disagreeable vain thing, and worse than vain. You, who are a Greek yourself, know that the Greek language is not to be learnt in a flash of lightning and by Hamiltonian systems, [2] but that it swallows up year after year of studious life. Now I have a ‘doxy’ (as Warburton called it) [3] that there is no exercise of the mind so little profitable to the mind, as the study of languages. It is the nearest thing to a passive recipiency .. is it not? .. as a mental action—though it leaves one as weary as ennui itself. Women want to be made to think actively: their apprehension, is quicker than that of men—but their defect lies for the most part, in the logical faculty, and in the higher mental activities. Well!—and then, .. to remember how our own English poets are neglected and scorned; our poets of the Elizabethan age! I wd rather that my countrywomen began by loving these.
Not that I wd blaspheme against Greek poetry, or depreciate the knowledge of the language as an attainment. I congratulate you on it—though I never shd think of trying to convert other women into a desire for it. Forgive me.
To think of Mr. Burges’s comparing my Nonnus to the right Nonnus, makes my hair stand on end—and the truth is, I had flattered myself that nobody wd take such trouble. I have not much reverence for Nonnus, and have pulled him and pushed him and made him stand as I chose—never fearing that my naughty impertinences wd be brought to light. For the rest, I thank you gratefully—(and may I respectfully and gratefully thank Miss Bayley?) for the kind words of both of you, both in this letter, and as my sister heard them. It is delightful to me to find such grace in the eyes of dearest Mr. Kenyon’s friends—and I remain, dear Miss Thomson,
Truly yours, and gladly,
E.B.B.
If there shd be anything more at any time for me to do, I trust to your trustfulness.
Address: Miss Thomson, / 22, Upper Berkeley Street, / West.
Publication: LEBB, I, 260–261.
Source: Kenyon Typescript, British Library.
1. See Appendix IV.
2. A method of teaching languages that was devised and taught by James Hamilton (1769–1829).
3. As recorded in Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestly, to the year 1795 (1806): “‘I have heard frequent use’ (said the late Lord Sandwich, in a debate on the Test Laws,) ‘of the works of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, but I confess myself at a loss to know precisely what they mean.’ Orthodoxy my Lord (said Warburton in a whisper) Orthodoxy, is my Doxy: heterodoxy, is another man’s Doxy” (p. 372n).
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