E501200B. Poems (1850).
The Palladium, December 1850, pp. 419–421.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 330–331.
Elizabeth Barrett (Browning), Margaret Fuller, and George Sand.
We do not belong to that class who are inclined to look back; who find that a former age has enjoyed greater privileges, or been enriched in a greater degree, either with spiritual or intellectual gifts, than the present. We think that the world must advance, that progression is the law of being, as it is the law of nature, and that apparently retrograde movements, like the retrograde movements of the planets, are not in reality such, but due to the position of the beholder. We think, and we rejoice in saying so, that the age in which we live has produced a class of female writers, such as no other age ever has produced; and we almost dare to prophesy, that this epoch is but the herald to another and better—an epoch when the receptivity of the general mind for works that are comprehensive and ennobling, shall have been greatly aided by efficient systems of education, that shall reach down into the fountains of being, and give to life greater dignity and meaning.
But while we assert that the female writers of the present day stand pre-eminent over those of other periods, we are very willing to acknowledge how much these are indebted to the women of the age preceding this. Madame Roland, with her clear, calm, penetrative intellect, her eager and acute perceptions, her deep insight into character and motives, and her high and unwavering principle, that enabled her to die so bravely, has left, in her celebrated “Appeal,” much that must have been largely influential in the formation of character. Madame de Staël, too, with her masculine understanding, alert talent, and dialectic skill, paved the way for a higher phase of female development. The failure of her life even taught a deeper lesson than all her works; for it clearly proved that there is somewhat more required than even the most richly-endowed intellect, and that the moral nature is cold and unproductive without the old Hebrew spirituality. Maria Edgeworth also had some influence—as large an influence as sound common sense and worldly prudence can have, when there is no deeper, diviner principle recognised. Miss Martineau, alive, and writing still at intervals, even amid suffering, may scarcely be said to belong to a former age. She rather stands between two widely distinct epochs, and is the first female writer in which these tendencies appear that characterise the writings of those authors whose names we have selected for our title. No two books, we allege, could be more different than the “Corrinne” of Madame de Staël, and the “Deerbrook” of Harriet Martineau. The story of “Corrinne” is simply a vehicle by which the writer conveys to us her impressions of Italy, and of Italian society. It is slight, though sometimes very painful; but every page is crowned with sentiment, every chapter teeming with gorgeous description. Like Sir James Macintosh, we went over it slowly, enjoying it drop by drop, yet its teachings were of no avail in the real business of life. Fascinating and instructing we acknowledged it to be, but there was no strength to be got from it. How different was it with the story of “Deerbrook!” A simple domestic tale, such as might happen with any party, or in any village, conveyed [p. 420→] so much that was calculated to instruct, to warm, to strengthen, and ennoble, that we got to consult it as we would an oracle, so many holy lessons does it contain of self-sacrifice and self-renunciation. Ever and anon we come upon some beautiful thought, some deep experience. Reflections alternate with suggestions, and life is felt to be a reality, godly or otherwise, as we make it so. We close the book, satisfied that we have attained to a larger range of being—have been dealing with
Thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
We think, then, that the writers of a former epoch were wanting in those lofty spiritual tendencies that shine through the pages of Elizabeth Barrett and Margaret Fuller—nay, which are to be found even in the writings of George Sand. They hovered on the outskirts of being—saw human beings in their relation to society, not as individual natures, endowed with powers of self-development. The reason of conventionalism (rules of society) is fast passing away: the living deed, the heroic action, must supersede the dogma; and no teaching but that which is vital and soul-stirring will gain acceptance. Having thus premised, we proceed to show, by an examination of the writings of the above-mentioned authoresses, what grounds there are for the belief here entertained, that in spiritual tendencies they surpass those of any other period.
Miss Barrett is well known as a writer of poetry, and a writer of no mean order. Of her longer pieces, we will not here speak, although they abound in fine passages. We think, with Archdeacon Hare, that women should confine themselves to lyrics. Then Miss Barrett’s lyrics are so exquisite, so full of fine thought and pure emotion. Some parties complain that they are without music: this we will not allow. The music is not grand and stately harmony, nor is it linked vocalness long drawn out: but it is the rich irregular music of nature, abrupt, impetuous, powerful—tones that have a meaning, and take hold of the heart. Beethoven gives us the songs of angels; Miss Barrett, the cry of the human—that cry that all may understand. In her “Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” we have, indicated by broken sobs and bursts of madness, one of the darkest tales that could disgrace the annals of existence; yet are there sunny beams of beauty—intuitions deep and consolatory—granted to the slave.
Again, when her soul is lighted up by its first and only love, when her spirit grew “as free as if unsold, unbought,” the simple manner in which she finds utterance for the new joy that filled her being, is as beautiful and touching as Desdemona’s mode of expressing her grief and dark presentiment of evil:—
I sang his name instead of a song;
Over and over I sang his name—
Backward and forward, I sang it along:
With my sweetest notes, it was still the same!
But I sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might never guess, from what they could hear,
That all the song was a name.
The stately stoicism of the following is in fine contrast with the simplicity of the above. She is condemned to the lash:— [p. 421→]
You think I shriek’d there?—not a sound!
I hung as a gourd hangs in the sun;
I only cursed them all around
As softly as I might have done
My own child after. From these sands,
Up to the mountains, lift your hands,
O slaves, and end what I begun!
Her “Song of the Factory Children” is another example of the strong sympathy of Miss Barrett’s large heart, and the power she has to utter it. She does not, like Madame de Staël, give us the stilted woes of the rich and voluptuous, but the bitter plaint of the oppressed and broken. Her going down into these depths is not the charitable act of a fine lady: it is the yearning of a highly-sensitive nature—a nature rich in generous love, and united to every grade of society by strong soul-ties—the holy bond of sisterhood. Yet this is only one phase of her opulent genius. Sorrows of another sort she can depict well. Her ballads are full of touching pathos. Life weariness she has felt, and can convey as one who has probed its deep meaning. “The discrepancy,” says Jean Paul, “between our wishes and our relations, between the soul and the earth, remains a riddle, if we continue, and, if we cease to live, a blasphemy. Strangers, born upon mountains, we consume in lowly places with an unhealthy heimweh. We belong to higher regions, and an eternal longing grows in our hearts at music, which is the Kuhreiyen of our native Alps.” Her bursts of enthusiasm likewise are genuine and effective, pregnant with a childlike delight and abandonment. Her poem on the gorse is an example:—
Mountain gorses ever golden,
When Linnæus on the sod
Knelt beside you, praising God, &c.
But we must not indulge in further quotation: we only add a remark or two. Beneath all this objective teaching, it will be clearly seen that there is a subjective basis—psychological experiences that give depth and reality to every emanation of her genius. We gather strength and encouragement as we read, and become self-reliant and brave. Such results are the true criteria. To be amused, fascinated, are small matters; but to be made stronger, wiser by it, is a sure proof of the value of an influence, in whatever shape it come to us.
[This article concludes with remarks on Margaret Fuller and George Sand, which are omitted here.]
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1850.
___________________
