5816. Robert Williams Buchanan to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 134–135.
Bexhill
near Hastings
Nov. 6th 1866
Dear Mr Browning–
Many many thanks. Your words are ever good & kind, and fully repay me for the long years during wh: you have been one of my Heroes. When we first met, I feared I did not impress you favorably; for I have a beastly manner, & seem insolent. But I feel that you have seen deeper, & do not think me a humbug.
You would do me a great Service if you would (in a word or so) let me know what you, who see so deep, think of Liz, Jane Lewson, Nell, Edward Crowhurst, Death of Roland, & Scaith o’ Bartle, [1] relatively to the best things in the “Idyls of Inverburn.” [2] I have a very particular reason for asking this, & by obliging me so far you will relieve me of some anxiety. My own feeling is that “London Poems” is a distinct developement beyond the Idyls—newer, deeper. Lewes (who has only read the Introduction [3] & the Little Milliner—neither of wh: he likes much) says that “from what he hears he fears the Book is not a developement on the Idyls.” This has given me pain, especially as it is unfair—unworthy of Lewes’s noble spirit. Will you then tell me what you think——to me, mark, never to be uttered to any other? In some things I think Lewes’ vision is true & fine——therefore I am grieved; and in others I have a suspicion that L. does not look quite far enough, is too Gœthesque, especially since he can see no merit at all in the “Undertones.” [4]
That is the true word I want. Have I grown in your opinion? I want the truth, which I should not get from a smaller man; and you will pour balm on my heart if your conscience can say “yes.” I know I have grown in popularity, but that is nothing; I have never sought popularity,—tho’ even that means something.
Ever yours
Robert Buchanan.
R. Browning Esq.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Alexander Turnbull Library.
1. All poems, along with “The Little Milliner” mentioned below, published in London Poems (1866).
2. Idyls and Legends of Inverburn (1865).
3. i.e., the dedication to William Hepworth Dixon, in which Buchanan writes: “One word concerning the present volume. ‘London Poems’ are the last of what I may term my ‘poems of probation,’—wherein I have fairly hinted what I am trying to assimilate in life and thought.”
4. An earlier collection of poems on classical themes, published by Edward Moxon & Co. in 1863.
___________________
