SD2011. Lydia Maria Child to J. Peter Lesley & Susan Lesley

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 260 (in part).

Wayland,

Dec. 12th 1856.

… Have you read Mrs. Brownings Aurora Leigh? I am entirely captivated with it. How strong, and how beautiful it is! And the episode of Marian Erle, how boldly it rides over social distinctions! God be praised for the strong hands that are putting a lever under conventionalities, raising the masses out of the mire into the sunshine! If ever there was a mortal that delighted in having the old fogies disturbed, I am that mortal. Verily Elizabeth Browning is a Michal Angelo among women. I should be proud to kiss the hem of her garment; and I would travel far to do it, if I thought any of the virtue would go out of her into me, for a season. …

Publication: The Collected Correspondence of Lydia Maria Child, ed. Patricia G. Holland and Milton Meltzer, Kraus Microform, Millwood, New York, 1980, letter 966.

Manuscript: American Philosophical Society.

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