3733. EBB to Thomas Westwood
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 118–119.
3. Rue du Colysée. Paris–
Thursday– [?7] February– [1856] [1]
My dear Mr Westwood, what must you think of me behind the veil of your courtesy, I mean, You .. in all sincerity. I’m frightened when I think what an ugly face you have drawn, & written under it EBB– Here are facts, & let them help me as they can.
I was in London last summer, & received your book [2] very late in it, & brought it away with me here to write & thank you when I could sit still for a moment & write– Now I get your second letter & book– [3] How thankful I am to you for both books & both letters, you wont believe me when I say.
Yet I am thankful, & so is my child, my little Penini, who was very proud to find his name in ‘Berries & Blossoms,’ & who admires the poetry excessively. [4] It’s a favorite book of his, and he carries it under his arm, .. or comes & sits on my knee (which at nearly seven years old, you may call unseasonable—but wait till you have a Berry & Blossom of your own, Mr Westwood!) sits on my knee, & reads a selection from it, with various notes of critical admiration– I should think this book must have had a success in England—has’nt it?– I mean, a hard, practical success. The babies must have carried it in their hands to the temple of Fame .. that particular counter (not to be too unpoetical) where booksellers pay money. You are intelligible in it to the child-mind, and yet you are graceful & fanciful—it is very happy.
As to the ‘Foxgloves’ .. I think you have made a step in advance in that– There is more force & energy, in addition to your characteristic sweetness—more thought. As to ‘Rose leaves,’ I am sure I must have Mrs Westwood’s leave before I can dare say a word of them. [5] The dew of a great Rose-bush is shaken in my eyes, and I feel blind, … but the perfume is all about,—one cant mistake a rose– I hope I shall know Her some day, and meantime & in spite of the dew, I can see her faintly through your sonnets– Meantime too, may I send her my kindest regards & wishes—besides much respect to your mother? [6]
Oh—it is all I ever wished for you, dear Mr Westwood,—a happy marriage!– Often I have thought that you deserved to be married happily, with your sensibility & refined tastes, which called for a companion– Does she learn your verses by heart? She loves them, I am sure– And now you are not out of spirits sometimes, & you dont think uncomfortable thoughts about ‘society.’
This last book is born of happiness, I see,—& it is the better for the parentage. Thank you for it, thank you for it.
We were in London last summer, hunted to death with printer[’]s devils, & the questionable angels of the world. I was much tried there in various ways,—and on our arrival in Paris, & at the first touch of cold weather, I broke down & was quite unwell with old exhausting symptoms. The last two months’ wonderful, unseasonable weather, & repose however, have lifted me up again—& now I am as well as usual, & working very hard at my new poem [7] .. which I never touched for six months– I could’nt even look at it in England. It will be a long poem in quite a different vein from anything I have attempted hitherto—therefore the success of it must be very uncertain– My husband’s ‘Men & Women’ are in great vogue in America, “selling as fast as they can be printed.” In England it has produced what is called a ‘sensation’ .. both for good & for evil .. having been abused most satisfactorily. People who understand, will see a decided advance in it—& the people who understand, increase.
With our united regard to you & yours, let me be (‘in spite of folly’ .. that is, silence)
most faithfully yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address. Day suggested by the publication date of Foxglove Bells (see note 3). The 7th was the first Thursday in February 1856.
2. Berries and Blossoms (1855).
3. Foxglove Bells: A Book of Sonnets (Brussels and London, 1856). It was advertised as “now ready” in the 2 February 1856 issue of The Athenæum (no. 1475, p. 124).
4. We have been unable to trace this presentation copy. Pen was reading it in December 1855; see the enclosure at the end of letter 3705.
5. “Rose-Leaves, A Heart Record,” the final section in Foxglove Bells, consists of twenty-six sonnets that record Westwood’s love for his wife, Rosa Emilia (née Deby). The sequence is introduced by sonnets 1 and 7 from EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850).
6. Mary Westwood. In the 1841 England census her age is given as 60.
7. Aurora Leigh.
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