842. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 110–111.
[Torquay]
August. 14. 1841
“I would not hear your enemy say so” [1] .. dear Mr Horne, .. that you were a bad correspondent, much less say so myself. You are a bad catechumen—& that’s the worst of you—& I am sure it does’nt deserve a bad cough. Therefore if you receive a jar of tamarinds from the West Indies viâ Wimpole Street—and you will, in the case of Papa’s having received any himself as he usually does—pray use them both as they are, & with hot water poured over them, & try if they relieve you at all. But the pilgrimage thro’ the villages is the remedy. And dear Mr Horne, never mind Psyche. There is plenty of time for Psyche—in the future, if not now. She is persecuting you, I fear. Remember—when one is tied with cords, to struggle only strengthens the knots. Put Psyche away, out of thought for the present, and dont fancy that I (for one) am even inclined to be impatient about it. I shall not expect any more news of her for six months, from this fourteenth of August, eighteen hundred and forty one.
And so your angelic sin is so rampant that ‘you’d be an Abbot,’ (not a butterfly, despite of Psyche!) if you went into a monastery—an abbot of misrule [2] —unless St Cecilia who “drew the angel down” [3] did the like by your reverend desires!– Ah, when I was ten years old, I beat you all you & Napoleon & all, in ambition—but now I only want to get home.
Nevertheless I fear I do fear, the light words may be bubbles at the top—that it may be darker underneath. I know the secret of that you see!– And I fear that the hooping cough & pressure of business dont do blythely together, & that you are walking your imaginary cloisters with a graver, perhaps sadder step than should be– Can it be so? Is it so? The louder the call then to the villages. Neither cloisters nor graves are ready for you yet, nor you for them. So I do hope that “generally you dont think about” either. Whom shd we have for Dramatic professor in the great new Genius-establishment, where the moth will be sworn never to corrupt, & the thief never to steal?– [4] Whom, if you were away? If you were only an Abbot, or an organist, it wd be different. Do remember that if you are not so tranquil as they, you are greater & to be valued more—and valued more–
So the Chronicle is gone—self slain because it wdnt condescend to be lively. [4] There was power enough in it for three or four magazine-popularities—but the taste of caviare preponderated, & people turned away their heads. They said of it, as my own ears witness, “dull & heavy”– Then it was such a fatal mistake to keep back the names! I saw it to the last.
God bless you! I am going I think in the face of the weather, if it wont turn round.–
Truly yours
EBB
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 36, New Broad Street / City / London.
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 33–36 (in part).
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Cf. Ezekiel, 36:2.
2. The Abbot (also Lord or King) of Misrule was the ancient director of Yuletide festivities.
3. St. Cecilia, who was blind, was the patroness of music and the supposed inventor of the organ. Legend recounts that an angel fell in love with her musical skill and descended from heaven to give her a crown of martyrdom.
4. Its last number was published in February 1841.
___________________
