4865. William Makepeace Thackeray to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 56–57.
36 Onslow Sqr
April 2. 1861.
My dear kind Mrs Browning
Has Browning ever had an aching tooth wh must come out (I dont say Mrs Browning, for women are much more courageous)—a tooth wh must come out and wh he has kept for months and months away from the dentist? I have had such a tooth a long time, and have sate down in this chair, and never had the courage to undergo the pull.
This tooth is an allegory (I mean this one)– Its your poem that you sent me months ago [1] —and who am I to refuse the poems of Elizabeth Browning, and set myself up as a judge over her? I cant tell you how often I have been going to write, and have failed.
You see that our Magazine [2] is written not only for men and women, but for boys, girls, infants, sucklings almost; and one of the best wives, mothers, women in the world writes some verses, wh I feel certain would be objected to by many of our readers– Not that the writer is not pure and the moral most pure chaste and right—but there are things my squeamish public will not hear on Mondays though on Sunday they listen to them without scruple. In your poem you know there is an account of unlawful passion felt by a man for a woman—and though you write pure doctrine and real modesty and pure ethics, I am sure our readers would make an outcry, and so I have not published this poem.
To have to say no to my betters is one of the hardest duties I have—but I’m sure we must not publish your verses—and I go down on my knees before cutting my victim’s head off, and say ‘Madam you know how I respect and regard you, Browning’s wife, and Peneny’s mother: and for what I am going to do, I must humbly ask your pardon.’
My girls send their very best regards and remembrances, and I am, dear Mrs Browning
Always yours
W M Thackeray
Publication: LEBB, II, 444.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. “Lord Walter’s Wife,” later published in Last Poems (1862).
2. The Cornhill Magazine, of which Thackeray was the editor.
___________________
