SD1500. Sara Coleridge to Ellis Yarnall
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 271 (in part).
10 Chester Place, Regent’s Park
August 28, 1851
Dear Mr. Yarnall,
I will begin an answer to your interesting letter at once. …
My daughter and I lately met at the house of my excellent old friend, Mr Kenyon, that poetical pair, Mr and Mrs Browning. You probably know her as Elizabeth Barrett, author of the “Seraphim,” “Drama of Exile,” and many ballads and minor poems, among which “Cowper’s Grave” is of special excellence. She has lately published “Casa Guidi Windows,” a meditative, political poem of considerable merit; Mazzini admires it, and it has been translated into Italian. Mrs Browning is in weak health, and cannot remain in this foggy clime; they are to reside in Paris. She is little, hard-featured, with long dark ringlets, a pale face, and plaintive voice, something very impressive in her dark eyes and her brow. Her general aspect puts me in mind of Mignon,—what Mignon might be in maturity and maternity. She has more poetic genius than any other woman living,—perhaps more than any woman ever shewed before, except Sappho. Still there is an imperfectness in what she produces; in many passages the expressions are very faulty,—the images forced and untrue,—the sentiments exaggerated, and the situations unnatural and unpleasant. Another pervading fault of Mrs Browning’s poetry is rugged, harsh versification, with imperfect rhymes, and altogether that want of art in the department of metre which prevents the language from being an unobstructive medium for the thought. Verse and diction are the bodily organism of poetry; this body ought to be soft, bright, lovely, carrying with it an influence and impression of delightfulness, yet not challenging attention by itself. These defects in poetical organism are inimical to the enduring life of the poetry; the same or similar thoughts will re-appear in better form, and so supersede the earlier version; whereas, if poetic thoughts are once bodied to perfection, they will remain and exclude all future rivals. There is fear with regard to many of our present producers of poetry, lest the good that is in them should be swamped by the inferior matter, which gives a grotesque air to their compositions at large. …
Text: Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge, ed. Edith Coleridge (London, 1873), II, 433–449.
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