5841. RB to Euphemia Millais
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 149–150.
19 Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace, W.
Jan. 7. ’67.
Dear Mrs Millais,
I hardly know what to advise about the Poems: all depends on the state of development in which the writer’s mind may be,—because, if these pieces were ultimates, so to speak, and the productions of maturity,—one would have to say that in poetry, by ancient prescript, only the best is bearable, and these are not best in any salient point of originality,—thought or expressed. On the other hand, if they are the beginnings, really & truly, of the author, [1] I could hope for a good deal in the end, from the very imperfections of what is given here: there is a distinct conception in each piece, something the writer had in mind to say before beginning,—and the working out of the same has been a matter of less importance. There is not the usual using-up of the effect produced by a sympathy with somebody else’s poetry, which people suppose to be a spontaneous effect of their own minds and treat accordingly: above all, there is not the usual singing-away till peradventure some thought or other turn up, in the course of it,—that is, the thought suggests the tune, not the tune the thoughts. But there is hardly more than the impulse toward the right direction, I think,—not any so positive excellence as to make one cry that the mark is hit,—unless perhaps in some of the capital Verses for Children,—the Baby House, for instance.
All this means only that I am certain that the writer is too poetically-minded a person (let the worst come to the worst) to be consigned to any rank below that of the strivers after the best: those who only want to be better than this,—or no worse than that,—if the hundreds of verse-makers “going”, might honestly be complimented on the prettiness of such a performance—but wherever there is a chance of getting a bird of the true sort, one finds the heart to say “Don’t twitter, tho’ all the sparrows do, but sing—since such things happen sometimes, and then we get a lark or a nightingale or even an owl—which last is by no means to be despised.” Moreover, you here have the opinion of the most unpopular poet that ever was, and so will be sure not to mind too much the sour sayings of the like of him! If the writer continues to feel and think as earnestly as now, and lets the feeling and thought take the words and music they immediately suggest, just as if the experiment of expression were being tried for the first time,—not neglecting meanwhile the mechanical helps to this in the way of proper studies both of nature and art, as well as the secret of the effectiveness of whatever poetry does affect the said author—(not repeating nor copying those “effects”, but finding out, I mean, why they prove to be effects, and so learning how to become similarly effective),—I don’t see why success might not be hoped for, and then it is success worth getting.
There, my dear Mrs Millais—could one but help anybody never so infinitesimally! I give true good wishes to the author, in any case.
Very faithfully yours
Robert Browning.
Publication: J.G. Millais, Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais (London, 1899), I, 439–440.
Manuscript: University of Kansas.
1. Unidentified.
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