659. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 72–73.
[London]
Thursday. [?9] [August 1838] [1]
My dear friend,
I was about to write to you just as I received your last note. For it, as well as for some kind & gratifying ones which preceded it, do receive my grateful thanks. My book ‘if it had a voice’, [2] would speak to you as eloquently as ever could the walls of Agamemnon’s palace, & more gladly!
To many of your criticisms I bow very low. To others, I am inclined to be rebellious. Several are founded upon misprints—such as the word ‘these’ to which you objected in Cowper’s Grave, & which was written originally those. [3] I must mention besides the punctuation in a passage of Isobel’s Child– It is true that there are no stops after the words “unweened” & “cry”: but if you had been told of the parenthesis conspicuous in that place, you would not have complained of any obscurity induced by the omission. [4] At least, I think not. The Greek words in ‘Night & the Merry Man’ are in Greek characters already. [5]
Thank you for being delighted with Blackwood’s Magazine. I was much delighted with it. I was pleased both with the words said, with the character of the Sayer, & the company in which they were said. It is something to be in a cave with Mr Milnes, who was born a crowned poet, & dear old Christopher, who is the first professionally poetical critic of the day, even if I were not praised there. Professor Wilson’s praise I have always coveted .. yet scarcely dared to hope for. [6]
The essay goes to you at last. [7] The real truth is, that Papa forgot all about it. I am sure you must have wondered at the delay. Miss Bordman’s copy I mean to send to her.
And this was the cause of my not writing to you before—this waiting for the essay—this, & not my ingratitude, whatever you may have thought of it!——
Dr Pye Smith is delightful—with a countenance whose radiancy I scarcely know whether to attribute to intelligence or benevolence. It may come of either—or both. If it pleases God that I should return in better health, I shall hope to see him often again & to converse with him– Conversation was out of the question last week—he being very deaf even with a ear trumpet,—& my voice, naturally so weak, having fallen into a ‘swound’ through illness.
The day of my departure is not yet fixed. When it is, I will write to you again. This is not a farewell.
With the truest thankfulness for all the kindness you have shown me, believe me my dear friend
affectionately yours
E B Barrett.
Will not Apolyptic do,—tho’ it does not mean Apocalyptic? [8] Find some excuse for it!– And pray do not mention to any person what Arabel told you on the subject of the intended length of the Athenæum-critique. Miss Mitford mentioned it to me in confidence: & you know that critics are very jealous of their mysteries!——
Publication: Weaver, pp. 416–418.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Dated by the reference to Blackwood’s and the continuing uncertainty regarding the date of EBB’s departure for Torquay.
2. Æschylus, Agamemnon, line 36.
3. “Beneath these deep pathetic eyes” (line 40 of “Cowper’s Grave,” subsequently corrected to “those deep”).
4. Lines 383–387. This passage was modified slightly for the 1850 reprinting.
5. Line 109: “And αι αι” (“woe, woe”) “written upon none!”
6. See letters 657, note 3, and 658, note 2.
7. An Essay on Mind, promised in letter 655.
8. Line 107 of “Sounds” read “As erst in Patmos apolyptic John.” When the poem was included in the 1850 edition, the line was changed to read “As the seer-saint of Patmos, loving John.”
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