4725. EBB to Robert Bulwer Lytton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 104–106.
Villa Alberti. Siena.
August– 19. [1860] [1]
My dear Lytton, we should have written long since about Lucile. Robert has waited for me and I have waited for what has not come in any satisfactory degree, a little ease of mind about the illness in England of one near & dear to me– Now at last however I must write. I cant let you think that I am indifferent about a book of yours. I could not be so, if the book had less beauty & power than this has,—nor if I were sadder still than I am.
You have a true faculty & there is true proof of it here,—proof too of a largeness & grasp of hand of which you had given no previous evidence– I dont like your form—the rhythmical—no, not at all. It seems to me a mistake altogether—nor do I think you have altogether made the best of it. When one winds such silk one should be careful not to tangle it, because that adds a sort of irritation to the sense of monotony. See how impertinent I have courage to be. But your poem can bear it. And you are able to stand clear on such points,—you who can be so musical, have such elasticity of expression, & power over your material,—very striking in the management of your dialogue & in parts also of the narrative. It seems to me that you must beware of this copiousness however lest it beguile you into diffuseness. You are not concentrated enough—you draw out rather than strike out with deep close strokes—that is my impression at least. Perhaps what is most above criticism in the volume is the descriptive part– It is exquisite & you have exceeded yourself in it– For the rest you can be very witty, very tender, very pathetic—but readers like myself miss, through all the good & true thoughts scattered up & down, the sight of an earnest intention– I dont want a moral in a frame– But I am uncomfortable in feeling a doubt whether the poet’s levity or his gravity be the more genuine. I have no sympathy with Lord Alfred, [2] & when he cries about the loss of his wife’s fortune I think he might have cried on other heads. I am a woman, you see– It seems to me that losing money (even his wife’s) should never make a man cry. Then the dropping into the next generation does not please me: that is a fault in art, I think– Upon the whole I have talked too much of faults & too little of the beauties which are uppermost. The reason is perhaps that while I have felt & applauded all the beauty, I am sensible to myself of a certain disappointment & discontent with the work as a whole,—or (to put it more graciously & quite as veraciously) of a feeling that the writer ought, with his means, to produce something deeper, more intense, with a stronger hold on the essential life of us, the life beyond & above life– Here, I do not see where the writer’s convictions are– He means well somehow, but what is the well he means?! The colour of his convictions is doubtful—which, let us all be sure, is a weakness in a work of art just as it is an infirmity in a man. Have I spoken, and will you be very, very vexed with me Lytton? or shall I be forgiven for the sake not merely of the affectionate interest I always shall feel in your career, but of the real admiration with which I recognize your brilliant gifts? Guess that I am ‘put out’ (who knows?) by your manly way of disposing of “women of genius,”—who dropping (through manifold afflictions) from the right end of their creation as ministering “Lady Alfreds,” are made sisters of charity as a matter of stringent necessity,—the Luciles going the way of the Evangelines, [3] .. to the hospital!
“born to nurse,
And to soothe, and to solace—” [4]
But I join Robert in thanking you very much for this book, [5] —which it was so kind of you to send us– Go on & win laurels, & let us congratulate you more & more– Let me say one word. I printed lately a thin slice of a book which I did not send you– Yet your name was down on my list– But I heard that your sympathies lay opposite, (as British sympathies do generally), and so I abstained from forcing you into an obligation for a disagreeable gift– That was the whole history– Dont think I forgot you or neglected you,—however “biologized by infernal spirits” according to William Howitt. [6] See Spiritual Mag.
We are here in a great lonely villa while the summer passes, looking out for earthquakes & Garibaldi. There was an earthquake just before we came, & the weather is said to indicate others coming. Garibaldi is come probably by this time—as near as Naples– [7] The Storys live in a villa opposite—a mile off—and Isa Blagden is at a ten minutes walk–
But this summer has the heart of a winter to me– Heavy & sad.
Robert writes & rides–
Write to us sometimes–
Affectionately yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 155–157.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. This letter was enclosed with letter 4726.
2. Lord Alfred Vargrave, one of two rivals for the hand of Lytton’s heroine, Lucile de Nevers. He marries instead Matilda Darcy.
3. EBB refers to the title character in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline (Boston, 1847), who, after years of hopeless search for her lost love, joins the Sisters of Mercy.
4. Lucile, Part II, VI, 39, 13–14.
5. This presentation copy of Lucile sold as lot 885 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1502).
7. Garibaldi crossed from Sicily to the Italian mainland on 18 and 19 August. “Popular risings in Calabria and Apulia greeted his arrival, the Bourbon troops were reluctant to face the invincible Garibaldians, and his advance on Naples was virtually a military promenade. He entered the city by train on 7 September” (Edgar Holt, Risorgimento: The Making of Italy, 1815–1870, 1970, p. 245).
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