717. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 208–209.
Beacon Terrace, Torquay.
Novr 20th 1839.
My dear Sir,
In passing to the immediate occasion of my troubling you with these lines, allow me to thank you .. to join mine to the thanks of many—for the pleasure of admiration (surely not the least of the pleasures of this world) with which I have read your trilogy. [2] It is so full of fine conception that its brevity grows into a fault– One would so willingly see it brought out into detail & consummation. But even as it is, believe in my contentment .. speaking for myself. The moonlight scene is exquisite—& there is (particularly distinguishable in that) a music of broken cadences which I have seldom observed out of Shakespeare. [3] It is the Fetch of a great tragedy—for all the briefness!–
I shd not have ventured to trouble you with opinions you might so easily take for granted, if it were not for another circumstance. Two months or more ago, you will remember asking me to send you a short poem by return of post for a particular purpose. I was ill able to write at the time, but still worse able to endure the appearance of discourtesy towards you in such a trifle,—& therefore I sent two MSS which I had by me, the shortest I had, but evidently too long to suit you. I did it, just & only that you might not think me ill natured.—and the event having proved their uselessness to you otherwise, perhaps you wd be kind enough to enclose them back to me—that is, if you can readily put your hand upon them. ‘The Madrigal of flowers’ is one title, & [‘]The Cry of the human’ the other.– [4] I am afraid of involving you in some trouble of search for which you may well reproach me. So pray if you cannot readily put your hand upon them, put the subject out of your head.
Very sincerely yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 75. Gloucester Place.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 10–12.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. For details of EBB’s friendship with Horne, see pp. 317-320.
2. i.e., “The Fetches,” his contribution to the 1840 Findens’ Tableaux.
3. In this scene the mad Theresa stands on the edge of a precipice, at the foot of which lies the body of the dead hero, and laments:
Ye birds of night!
Lift all your spiritual voices sweet,
To lull the sleeping light!
Let it not touch my naked feet
With eastern ardours fleet
On this rocky-hanging height,
Only the moon
So coldly smile a-down
For I would be chill
As a dead man’s will
With my blood lock’d up in a winter rill
All tender thoughts to drown.
Good night! farewell!
Theresa sings a funeral knell
And nightingales carol from the dell!
Farewell, sweet bird, farewell!
4. “The Madrigal of Flowers” was not published until 1844, when it was included in Poems, with the title “A Flower in a Letter.” “The Cry of the Human” was printed in The Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion, November 1842 (pp. 197–199); it was reprinted in Poems (1844). (See Reconstruction, D288 and D172.)
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