881. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 186–187.
[London]
Decr 11. 1841.
My dear Mr Kenyon;
I shall be very glad to see you any day—unless I am more unwell than usual—any day between three and five. I am on the sofa at three & ready & glad to see you. Only dont come,—dont think of coming .. when you do not stand quite free from every pleasanter engagement. Let me feel sure of that.
Thank you for the books. The ballads make a vision of a book, certainly! A book with a glory round it! The difficulty is to read out of it! One may turn the leaves of a rose with less remorse than these—& fear less to leave a stain behind. A south wind in full garden practice, shd be retained for the purpose. It’s too beautiful for a book. [1]
Channing has delighted me—not only in the ‘Self Culture’—but with the divine fervent world-wide Christ-wide spirit of the Congregational discourse. [2] How he puts the Puseyites [3] to shame!– I except a few phrases, a few words & lines here & there, and then admire & embrace the whole! Virtue shd be considered to include right ideas of God—and then he does not admit original sin, nor the tendency to sinning. [4] Everything besides I admire & receive & embrace. He must be, I shd think, an Arian rather than a Socinian [5] —and whichever he may be, he honors Christ more in this true grand view of Church fellowship, than many Trinitarians do,—for instance than those at Oxford or Rome!
Believe me
Your affectionate cousin
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. EBB may be referring to Translations of the Ancient Spanish Ballads, by John Gibson Lockhart, included in the listing of new books in the November 1841 issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine.
2. William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) was an American Unitarian preacher and author, whom EBB had described as “obviously & prominently an extraordinary man” after reading The Importance and Means of a National Literature, published in 1830 (Diary, p. 155). The works EBB now discusses are Self Culture (1839) and A Discourse, Preached at the Dedication of the Second Congregational Unitarian Church, New York. December 7. 1826 (1826). The Congregationalists held that each congregation should be entirely autonomous; the Unitarians did not accept the doctrine of the Trinity.
4. In his Discourse, Channing held that the belief in original sin was one of the errors of the Trinitarians.
5. For an explanation of the beliefs of the Arians and Socinians, see letters 511, note 14 and 483, note 3, respectively.
___________________
