3927. John Ruskin to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 138–139.
Denmark Hill.
27th November, 1856.
My dear Browning
I think Aurora Leigh the greatest poem in the English language: unsurpassed by anything but Shakespeare—not surpassed by Shakespeare[’]s sonnets—& therefore the greatest poem in the language. I write this, you see, very deliberately, straight, or nearly so, which is not common with me, for I am taking pains that you may not think—(nor anybody else) that I am writing in a state of excitement, though there is enough in the poem to put one into such a state. I have not written immediately either, partly because I did not know if you were at Florence yet, partly because I wished to read the poem quite through. I like it all—familiar parts and unfamiliar—passionate and satirical, evil telling and good telling—philosophical and dramatic—all. It has one or two sharp blemishes I think, in words, here & there—chiefly Greek. I think the “Hat aside” [1] a great discord in the opening—it tells on me like a crack in the midst of the sweetest fresco colour. Phalanstery [2] I can’t find in Johnson’s dictionary, and don’t know what it means. Dynastick [3] hurts me like a stick—one or two passages in the art discussion I haven’t made out yet. For the rest, I am entirely subdued—or raised—to be Mrs Browning[’]s very humble votary & servant; I feel, for the time, as if I could do nothing more in describing—or in saying anything—as if indeed, nobody could say anything more now—without appearing to be saying something weak in thought—and unmelodious in English: so far does her Saying seem to me above present Bests and sweetests. I am better in every way for reading the poem—perhaps not the least because I feel so crushed by it: but also because it is like breathing the purest heavenly air; it makes one healthier through every nerve, & purer through every purpose.
It is also the first perfect poetical expression of the Age, according to her own principles.– But poor Scott! and the sellers of old armour in Wardour St! [4] I see Mrs Browning herself has sometimes no compassion.
I have heard from Miss Heaton that Mrs Browning and you are both well—and happy in your Florence home. God grant you, both, long life, and peace—you happy—good—great people that you are.
I will write you again to tell you anything that may interest you of what is doing here: I do not feel inclined to talk of anything but the poem just now, and for that—I should only weaken the true sense I would give you of my admiration of it, if I tried to put it any more into words. Only believe me affectionately Yours & Hers,
J Ruskin.
My Father and mother beg their sincerest regards[.] I never saw my father so taken with a poem in my life. He doesnt usually care for that kind of poetry (likes Pope & Crabbe)—but he sat at it till one in the morning and never let the book out of his hand when he was in the house, till he had finished it—and said it quite did him good—made him better from a little ailing that he was. To my mother I am reading it out aloud every day.
Address, on integral page: Affranchie / Robert Browning Esq. / Poste Restante / Florence. / Italy.
Publication: Cook, pp. 247–249.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Aurora Leigh, I, 118–120: “For even prosaic men who wear grief long / Will get to wear it as a hat aside / With a flower stuck in’t.”
2. Cf. Aurora Leigh, III, 108, and VI, 210, where it is “phalansteries.”
3. Cf. Aurora Leigh, V, 308.
4. Ruskin is alluding to the poem’s insistence that contemporary poets represent the world they live in, and not (as Scott did in his romances) the world of “moat and drawbridge.” See Aurora Leigh, V, 189–199. Wardour Street, located in Soho, was known in the nineteenth century for antique shops of “a rather dubious reputation,” and its name “was a term used to signify ornate gothic revival furniture and fake antiques generally” (The London Encyclopædia, ed. Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, 1983, pp. 924–925).
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