SD2267. James Thomson to Agnes Gray
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 358 (in part).
Richmond Barracks, Dublin
May 14, 1859.
… I take the liberty of sending you by this post two volumes of verse which fell into my hands some time back. The author, Robert Browning, is about the strongest and manliest of our living poets. His wife (née Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, to adopt the style of wedding-cards) is beyond all comparison the greatest of English poetesses—those whose works are published, I mean. I happen to have her last book, and will send it to you some day. You will probably not care for these poems at first; but they are worth your study, and you may find, as I did, that they improve much with longer acquaintance. If I might school you a bit, I should order you always to look up in a dictionary what words you don’t understand, and always to puzzle over difficult passages until they become either perfectly clear or thoroughly hopeless. No lazy reading will ever master a masterly writer. Should you care enough for Browning to wish thoroughly to comprehend him, I shall of course be happy to render you what little assistance may be in my power towards the clearing up of obscurities. The final poem, you will perceive, is addressed to his wife. To the best of my remembrance he used not to write so large a proportion of love-poetry aforetime; his marriage must do its best to excuse the poor fellow for his present extravagance in that article. My notion was that your poets, though always fluttering about Love like moths about a rushlight, generally took good care not to singe seriously their precious selves. This unfortunate Mr. Browning, however, seems to have flung himself headlong into the flame, determined to get burnt up—wings and all. …
Text: Henry S. Salt, The Life of James Thomson (London, 1898), pp. 24–26.
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