3554. EBB to John Ruskin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 166–169.
Florence–
June 2. [1855] [1]
My dear Mr Ruskin
I believe I shall rather prove in this letter how my head turns round when I write it, than explain why I did’nt write it before—and so you will go on to think me the most insusceptible & least grateful of human beings—no small distinction in our bad obtuse world. Yet the truth is—oh, the truth is, that I am deeply grateful to you & have felt to the quick of my heart the meaning & kindness of your words—the worth of your sympathy & praise. One thing especially, when you said [it], made me thankful that I had been allowed to live to hear it—since even to fancy that anything I had written could be the means of the least good to you, is worth all the trumpet-blowing of a vulgar fame. [2] Oh—of course, I do not exaggerate—though your generosity does– I understand the case as it is– We burn straw and it warms us– My verses catch fire from you as you read them, & so you see them in that light of your own. But it is something to be used to such an end by such a man, and I thank you, thank you, & so does my husband, for the deep pleasure you have given us in the words you have written–
And why not say so sooner? Just because I wanted to say so fully—& because I have been crushed into a corner past all elbow-room for doing anything largely & comfortably, by work & fuss & uncertainty of various kinds. Now it is’nt any better scarcely—though it is quite fixed now that we are going from Florence to England—no more of the shadow-dancing which is so pretty at the opera & so fatiguing in real life. We are coming, & have finished most of our preparations, .. conducted on a balance of .. must we go? may we stay? .. which is so very inconvenient. If you knew what it is to give up this still dream-life of our Florence, where if one is over-busy ever, the old tapestries on the walls & the pre-Giotto pictures (picked up by my husband for so many pauls) surround us ready to quiet us again .. if you knew what it is to give it all up & be put into the mill of a dingy London lodging & ground very small indeed .. you would’nt be angry with us for being sorry to go north—you would’nt think it unnatural– As for me I have all sorts of pain in England—everything is against me .. except a few things: & yes, while my husband & I groan at one another, strophe & antistrophe (pardon that rag of Greek!) we admit our compensations .. that it will be an excellent thing, for instance, to see Mr Ruskin!! Are we likely to undervalue that?
Let me consider how to answer your questions– My poetry .. which you are so good to, & which you once thought “sickly” you say, .. & why not? (I have often written sickly poetry, I do not doubt .. I have been sickly myself! I ..) has been called by much harder names .. “affected” for instance, a charge I have never deserved … for I do think, if I may say it of myself, that the desire of speaking or spluttering the real truth out broadly, may be a cause of a good deal of what is called in me careless & awkward expression– My friends took some trouble with me at one time—but though I am not self-willed naturally, as you will find when you know me, I hope .. I never could adopt the counsel urged upon me to keep in sight always the “stupidest person of my acquaintance in order to clear & judicious forms of composition”– Will you set me down as arrogant, if I say, that the longer I live in this writing & reading world, the more convinced I am that the mass of readers never receive a poet (you who are a poet yourself, must surely observe that) without inter-mediation. The few understand, appreciate, & distribuate [sic] to the multitude below. Therefore to say a thing faintly, because saying it strongly sounds odd or obscure, or unattractive for some reason, to “careless readers,” does appear to me bad policy as well as bad art– Is not art like virtue?—to be practised for it’s own sake first– If we sacrifice our ideal to notions of immediate utility, would it not be better for us to write tracts at once?
Of course, any remark of your’s is to be received & considered with all reverence. Only, be sure you please to say, .. “do it differently to satisfy me, John Ruskin ..” and not to satisfy Mr Mrs & the Miss & Master Smith, of the great majority– The great majority is the majority of the little you know, who will come over to you if you dont think of them—and if they dont, .. you will bear it.
Am I pert, do you think? No, dont think it– And the truth is, though you may not see that, that your praise made me feel very humble– Nay, I was quite abashed at the idea of the “illumination” of my poem, & still I keep winking my eyes at the prospect of so much glory– If you were a woman, I might say .. when one feels ugly one pulls down the blinds .. but as a man you are superior to the understanding of such a figure, & so I must simply tell you that you honor me over-much, indeed. My husband is very much pleased, & particularly pleased that you selected ‘Catarina’, which is his favorite among my poems for some personal fanciful reasons beside the rest–
But to go back .. I said that any remark of yours was to be received by me in all reverence,—and truth is a part of reverence,—so I shall end by telling you the truth, that I think you quite wrong in your objection to “nympholept”– Nympholepsy is no more a Greek word than epilepsy—and nobody would or could object to epilepsy or apoplexy as a Greek word– It’s a word for a specific disease, or mania among the ancients .. that mystical passion for an invisible nymph, common to a certain class of visionaries. Indeed I am not the first in referring to it in English literature—De Quincey has done so in prose, [3] for instance,—& Lord Byron talks of
“The nympholepsy of a fond despair”, [4]
though he never was accused of being overridden by his Greek– Tell me now if I am not justified, I also?– We are all nympholepts in running after our ideals—& none more than yourself, indeed!–
Our American friend Mr Jarves wrote to us full of gratitude & gratification on account of your kindness to him, for which we also should thank you– Whether he felt most overjoyed by the clasp of your hand or that of a disembodied spirit, which he swears was as real .. (under the mediumship of Hume his compatriot.) it was somewhat difficult to distinguish. But all else in England seemed dull & worthless in comparison with those two “manifestations” … the spirit’s, and your’s!–
How very, very kind of your mother to think of my child! And how ha<ppy> I am near the end of my paper, not to be tempted on into “descriptions” that “hold the place of sense.” [5] He is six years old—he reads English & Italian, & writes without lines—and shall I send you a poem of his for “illumination”? His poems are far before mine—the very prattle of the angels, when they stammer at first, & are not sure of the pronunciation of es and is in the spiritual Heavens .. (see Swedenborg.) [6] Really he is a sweet & good child, & I am not bearable in my conceit of him——as you see!– My thankful regards to your mother, whom I shall hope to meet with you—& do yourself accept as much from us both.
Most truly yours
Elizabeth B Browning.
We leave Florence next week—& spend at least a week in Paris—138. Avenue des Champs Elysées[.]
Address: Angleterre viâ France. / John Ruskin Esqre / Denmark Hill / Camberwell / London.
Publication: LEBB, II, 198–202.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. Antony and Cleopatra, III, 13, 119.
3. In “Sketches of Life and Manners; From the Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater. Recollections of Grasmere,” De Quincey writes: “He languished, with a sort of despairing nympholepsy, after intellectual pleasures” (Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, September 1839, p. 578).
4. Cf. Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818), IV, cxv, 5.
5. Cf. Alexander Pope, “An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot” ([1735]), line 148.
6. In A Treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell (Baltimore, 1812), Swedenborg writes: “Hence it is, that the Speech of the Celestials may be compared to a smooth, gently flowing water; but that of the Spiritual Angels, to a current somewhat interrupted and broken: the Speech of the former sounds much from the vowels U and O, and that of the latter from the vowels E and I ” (section 241, p. 193).
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