468. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 60–63.
Sidmouth:
November 2d [1832] [1]
You are wrong in imagining me to be offended with you. If I have been pained by you, it has been partly my own fault; I do not blame you for paining me. Your actions have always, within my observation, been gentle & amiable; and notwithstanding what you suspect me of insinuating against your disposition, no one could persuade me that any actions of yours could be otherwise–
In writing a short letter to you, I did not refer in my thoughts to the short one which I had previously received from you,—tho’ I did refer to what your former letters had led me to believe. I suspected months ago that the pleasure which you once seemed to have in hearing from me was much lessened, & that you would prefer short letters to longer ones in my handwriting. I asked you if it were not so,—and after some hesitation or at least delay, you admitted that you did not like my letters to be long. You were right & candid & kind in returning an honest answer, and I had promised not to be angry when it came—yet our feelings are not in our power & I could not prevent it’s paining me. I afterwards said something to you about frequent letters being still more unwelcome to you than long letters. To this observation you made no reply; but the silence was sufficiently expressive. What was I to do? I have always had a very great dislike to intruding in the very least degree on the time or attention or kindness of any person. But to intrude upon you—I did not merely dislike it—I shrunk from it. I had become convinced that the only manner in which I had it in my power to give you even negative pleasure, was by writing to you little & seldom. I did not remain so long without writing, without pain to myself; and I confess to you,—(because the confession will prove that I was not influenced by anger) that I could not write that last letter with tearless eyes.
In writing it I was careful not even to hint what might seem to you like a reproach. Surely many of my pleasures have been “transient,” besides those connected with your friendship & correspondence. But you say that I should have spoken out, instead of insinuating anything. If I appeared to insinuate, it was only because I find it difficult in writing, to be always on my guard. I am apt to write too naturally,—and a natural expression of natural feeling, you are apt to regard as an insinuation. What was I to speak out?– Was I to write to you to say that you did not like me to write at length & often to you? You knew that before. Would a reproachful letter be more welcome than my other letters? You know it would not.
The first literary person with whom I was ever intimate, was Sir Uvedale Price; but altho’ I fully estimated his talents & partial kindness to me, yet long & long before I had known you half as long as I had known him, I cared much more for you than I ever did for him. Your mind seemed to suit my mind better, and I liked what I observed of unworldliness & enthusiasm in your disposition. But notwithstanding this opinion, it would not have been in my nature to have felt as much friendship for you as I felt, if I had not had the utmost confidence in your friendship for me. I had that confidence. The charm of my intercourse with you, was the power of communicating with a person who could feel like me & with me, & of saying within myself—I cannot tire him. Indeed you used to say to me, when I had sent you whole sheets closely written, “Do not talk of tiring me. I always wish your letters to be much longer than they are.” I have those words in your handwriting. How different that time is to this! and there is besides another difference. Then I could speak to you what I wrote; and now—I may never speak to you again. By degrees the confidence which I had felt, waned away; and I became afraid of tiring you, & even more constrained towards you, in some respects, than towards other people. The pleasure you used to feel in writing to me, became a labour & exertion. The pleasure you used to feel in hearing from me, became a labour too,—and so passeth away the fashion of the world!—— [2]
I certainly think, & you must think it too that you are changed towards me. [3] Yet so far am I from blaming you, that I consider the fault to be, in all probability, not yours but mine. I have observed that people in general who have liked me best, have liked me better at first than afterwards; and I used once to imagine (in my infinite modesty) that this was caused by my not being very apt to like them much in return. I do not understand why people should like me better at first;—for I am very certain of not pretending to be what I am not, & of there being in my shy dull manner, no purpureus pannus, [4] to catch the eye in an exordium. Still the fault must be in me somewhere; tho’ where, I have not yet found out.
I have tried to write this letter calmly & coolly,—but if after all there should be one word in it likely to give you annoyance, I beseech you to forgive it. I may be more chivalrous in my notions of friendship than is usual, & may expect more than a person better used to the world might do—but however this may be, it is no pleasure to me to assail you with letters like this. You know you exacted it by your letter to me, when I would have preferred being silent. You need not notice what I have written unless you like it. Write to me whenever it is not particularly disagreable to you; and let me write to you as seldom & shortly as suits your real inclination, without suspecting me of being offended, or of thinking ill of you. If you could see into my heart, you could not suspect me of thinking ill of you!——
I am glad you have been reading Euripides. I have looked at the passages you referred me to, in my Euripides,—and I observe that I have marked them all three. A pencil line of admiration is drawn along the whole margin of the scene you speak of, in the Orestes. “If you still feel an interest in the subject,” you say. “If you are alive”, you might have said. I have read, since I spoke to you last about my Greek reading, the last line of the last ode of Pindar, & have again gone thro’ the Alcestis & the Troades;– Besides this I have gone thro’ the whole of the Æneid except two books which I was familiar with, and half the Hebrew Bible. Forster’s bible [5] is in two quarto volumes,—and one of them I have read regularly from beginning to end—except two or three pages which will be finished by Sunday morning. If I can—supposing that I can,—complete my poem, [6] & finish reading the whole of the old Testament in Hebrew & Chaldee this winter, I think I may be called rather industrious. I am thinking of attempting a poetical version of the Psalms in the spring. [7] Every version of them is essentially unpoetical, & has I believe been made, not from the original Hebrew but from a translation: which circumstance is in itself likely enough to produce weakness & frigidity! I shall be anxious to hear Mr Joseph Clarke’s final judgment– Did he estimate your Select Passages? If he did not, he is not a proper “Daniel come to judgment”. [8] Can I venture to send this long letter? Perhaps I may, for once. Believe that <…> [9] I think of you often, & that it is always to wish for your happiness. My best love to Mrs Boyd & Annie.
Yours affectionately
E B Barrett.
I received yr letter only yesterday.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / Bath Hampton / Bath.
Publication: Weaver, pp. 407–410.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 3 November 1832.
2. Cf. I Corinthians, 7:31.
3. The words “changed towards me” are written above a passage of similar length, which had been underscored and which was obliterated. Presumably it was harsher than EBB’s substitution.
4. “Purple passage” (Horace, De Arte Poetica, 15–16).
5. EBB’s heavily-annotated copy of Biblia Hebraica (1750), ed. Nathaniel Forster (1718–57), sold as lot 388 in Browning Collections. It is now at Union Theological Seminary (Reconstruction, A211).
6. Unidentified. Reference to letter 471 implies that she is not thinking of her translation of Prometheus Bound.
7. As far as is known, nothing came of this project.
8. The Merchant of Venice, IV, 1, 223.
9. About a dozen words have been obliterated, apparently by EBB.
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