4726. RB to Robert Bulwer Lytton
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 106–107.
Siena,
Aug. 20. ’60.
Your scrap of letter, [1] —the postscript to F. Ch’s, [2] —was followed a day or two after by the Poem it promised, truest thanks for both. I had been very anxious to see “Lucille” and rather avoided critical notices with their extracts—tho’ many a fresh & sparkling line made itself felt at all hazards. I think your general power is increased and brought into new channels: there is wit, use of the world,—wisdom too—& the old music & pathos—only the general dance of the metre fatigues, perhaps. There are backgrounds of scenery of great beauty & finish: my impression of the whole is,—going to the figures in the picture,—that you detail effects too minutely, instead of leaving the causes,—(the actions, passions, words, & deeds of the “figures”) to suggest the effects to the reader: that is the strong & succinct way, at least. I want you to be really great because it is in you, clearly enough. By effects, I mean moral as well as merely material effects—and, always, by success, speaking of you, I want & expect the highest of its kind.
But this “strong way” makes short work with a poem,—and gets very little reward beside the greatest. The end is,—if you don’t make a poet, you will have murdered a real specimen of that same. I wish also your men were stronger: is it in nature to truly say, every now & then to a woman, “had you held out a hand to me then, I should have been saved—whereas,” &c. &c.”—did ever man or woman really save so a strong man? It seems to me like the point in cockney horsemanship of pulling your horse up by the curb when he stumbles—it being still doubtful to me whether your curb does it, or the brute’s own resolution & resource.
See what Landor wrote on returning me the poem: [3] you know—or do you know? that he is here, a stone’s cast off. He admires you enormously. We should be spending a pleasant summer here, in an old, cool, quiet villa, but that my wife is kept wretched by fears for the event of a sister’s illness. She would be well otherwise. Write a word, dear Lytton, when the old feeling prompts you, & be sure you have no better wisher and affectionate watcher than
Yours ever faithfully
Robert Browning.
Publication: BBIS-10, pp. 158–159.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Not extant.
2. i.e., Frederic Chapman’s—also not extant.
3. RB enclosed Landor’s remarks, which are not with this letter. Lytton comments on them in the second paragraph of letter 4736.
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