2644. EBB to James Russell Lowell
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, 14, 86–87.
Pisa.
Decr 17– 1846.
Dear Mr Lowell,
Certainly I have every reason to fear for myself in approaching you at last– I come up “with my lesson” like a lagging schoolboy, with a sidelong glance at the shelf where the rod lies. Extend your pardon to me at once, that I may take courage & speak.
I believe you had my letter about your ‘Conversations’ while I was having yours on the subject of the Slave poem, [1] —but being haunted by a dreadful doubt even upon that point, I must mention it .. not to pass with you for a monster of ingratitude. Did you get that letter? The book was so interesting, that if my name had not been in it, I should have had reasons for thanking you with ever so much earnestness. It has the beauty & fancy, which a poet’s book talking of poets, is apt to have.
And now for this Slave-poem, which at the eleventh hour, I enclose to you. I ought to have at once answered your request last year, & should have done so but was driven by a great wind of vexatious circumstances, altogether from my purpose. Driven up & down, distracted from writing & reading I have been since, too, .. & you will make allowances for me in remembering that I am only three month’s married, & in the sudden glare of light & happiness, here in Italy, after my long years of imprisonment in sickness & depression, without so much as the hope of this liberty. Ill or well, sad or joyful, however, the great antislavery cause must always be dear to me,—and for the sake, I will say, as much of American honour as of general mercy & right– In the poem I enclose to you I have taken up this double feeling, (with an application of the case to women especially) perhaps you will think too bitterly & passionately for publication in your country. I do not presume to decide—I leave it entirely, of course, to your judgement– I will only say, for my own part, that in writing this poem, I have not forgotten, as an Englishwoman, that we have scarcely done washing our national garments clear of the dust of the very same reproach. Neither would I have it forgotten by any of you, that I have written this poem precisely because, as an Englishwoman ought, I love & honour the American people.
Will you have the goodness to forward to Mrs Chapman [2] who wrote to me on this same subject, nearly at the same time with yourself, the note addressed to her?
And will you accept my husband’s compliments & wishes, in a right spirit of poetical brotherhood? That you know him a little, I learnt pleasantly from your ‘Conversations.’
We shall stay at Pisa only for a few months longer, but shall remain in Italy an indefinite time–
I am very faithfully yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
I fear that the paper used for the m∙s poem, is rather too thin—but with a little care, the reading may be found possible, perhaps.
Address, on cover sheet: J R Lowell Esqre / Cambridge, / Massachusetts, / United States. / Amérique.
Publication: BC, 14, 86–87 (in part).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” first published in The Liberty Bell (Boston, 1848); see letter 2648, note 2. The manuscript that EBB is sending (used as printer’s copy for the 1848 publication), consists of nine numbered pages (see Reconstruction, D805; now at ABL).
2. EBB’s letter to Maria Chapman (née Weston, 1806–85) has not been found.
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