The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume I Part 18

_To H.S. Boyd_ September 8, 1843.

My very dear Friend,--I ask you humbly not to fancy me in a pa.s.sion whenever I happen to be silent. For a woman to be silent is ominous, I know, but it need not be significant of anything quite so terrible as ill-humour. And yet it always happens so; if I do not write I am sure to be cross in your opinion. You set me down directly as 'hurt,' which means _irritable_; or 'offended,' which means _sulky_; your ideal of me having, in fact, 'its finger in its eye' all day long.

I, on the contrary, humbled as I was by your hard criticism of my soft rhymes about Flush,[81] waited for Arabel to carry a message for me, begging to know whether you would care at all to see my 'Cry of the Children'[82] before I sent it to you. But Arabel went without telling me that she was going: twice she went to St. John's Wood and made no sign; and now I find myself thrown on my own resources. Will you see the 'Cry of the Human'[83] or not? It will not please you, probably.

It wants melody. The versification is eccentric to the ear, and the subject (the factory miseries) is scarcely an agreeable one to the fancy. Perhaps altogether you had better not see it, because I know you think me to be deteriorating, and I don't want you to have further hypothetical evidence of so false an opinion. Humbled as I am, I say 'so false an opinion.' Frankly, if not humbly, I believe myself to have gained power since the time of the publication of the 'Seraphim,'

and lost nothing except happiness. Frankly, if not humbly!

With regard to the 'House of Clouds'[84] I disagree both with you and Miss Mitford, thinking it, comparatively with my other poems, neither so bad nor so good as you two account it. It has certainly been singled out for great praise both at home and abroad, and only the other day Mr. Horne wrote to me to reproach me for not having mentioned it to him, because he came upon it accidentally and considered it 'one of my best productions.' Mr. Kenyon holds the same opinion. As for Flush's verses, they are what I call cobweb verses, thin and light enough; and Arabel was mistaken in telling you that Miss Mitford gave the prize to them. Her words were, 'They are as tender and true as anything you ever wrote, but nothing is equal to the "House of Clouds."' Those were her words, or to that effect, and I refer to them to you, not for the sake of Flush's verses, which really do not appear even to myself, their writer, worth a defence, but for the sake of _your_ judgment of _her_ accuracy in judging.

Lately I have received two letters from the profoundest woman thinker in England, Miss Martineau--letters which touched me deeply while they gave me pleasure I did not expect.

My poor Flush has fallen into tribulation. Think of Catiline, the great savage Cuba bloodhound belonging to this house, attempting last night to worry him just as the first Catiline did Cicero. Flush was rescued, but not before he had been wounded severely: and this morning he is on three legs and in great depression of spirits. My poor, poor Flus.h.i.+e! He lies on my sofa and looks up to me with most pathetic eyes.

Where is Annie? If I send my love to her, will it ever be found again?

May G.o.d bless you both!

Dearest Mr. Boyd's affectionate and grateful E.B.B.

[Footnote 81: 'To Flush, my dog' (_Poetical Works_, iii. 19).]

[Footnote 82: Published in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for August 1843, and called forth by Mr. Horne's report as a.s.sistant commissioner on the employment of children in mines and manufactories.]

[Footnote 83: Evidently a slip of the pen for 'Children.']

[Footnote 84: _Poetical Works_, iii. 186. Mr. Boyd's opinion of it may be learnt from Miss Barrett's letter to Horne, dated August 31, 1843 (_Letters to R.H. Horne_, i. 84): 'Mr. Boyd told me that he had read my papers on the Greek Fathers with the more satisfaction because he had inferred from my "House of Clouds" that illness had _impaired my faculties_.']

_To H.S. Boyd_ Monday, September 19, 1843.

My own dear Friend,--I should have written instantly to explain myself out of appearances which did me injustice, only I have been in such distress as to have no courage for writing. Flush was stolen away, and for three days I could neither sleep nor eat, nor do anything much more rational than cry. _Confiteor tibi_, oh reverend father. And if you call me very silly, I am so used to the reproach throughout the week as to be hardened to the point of vanity. The worst of it is, now, that there will be no need of more 'Houses of Clouds' to prove to you the deterioration of my faculties. Q.E.D.

In my own defence, I really believe that my distress arose somewhat less from the mere separation from dear little Flus.h.i.+e than from the consideration of how he was breaking his heart, cast upon the cruel world. Formerly, when he has been prevented from sleeping on my bed he has pa.s.sed the night in moaning piteously, and often he has refused to eat from a strange hand. And then he loves me, heart to heart; there was no exaggeration in my verses about him, if there was no poetry.

And when I heard that he cried in the street and then vanished, there was little wonder that I, on my part, should cry in the house.

With great difficulty we hunted the dog-banditti into their caves of the city, and bribed them into giving back their victim. Money was the least thing to think of in such case; I would have given a thousand pounds if I had had them in my hand. The audacity of the wretched men was marvellous. They said that they had been 'about stealing Flush these two years,' and warned us plainly to take care of him for the future.

The joy of the meeting between Flush and me would be a good subject for a Greek ode--I recommend it to you. It might take rank next to the epical parting of Hector and Andromache. He dashed up the stairs into my room and into my arms, where I hugged him and kissed him, black as he was--black as if imbued in a distillation of St. Giles's. Ah, I can break jests about it _now_, you see. Well, to go back to the explanations I promised to give you, I must tell you that Arabel _perfectly forgot_ to say a word to me about 'Blackwood' and your wish that I should send the magazine. It was only after I heard that you had procured it yourself, and after I mentioned this to her, that she remembered her omission all at once. Therefore I am quite vexed and disappointed, I beg you to believe--_I_, who have pleasure in giving you any printed verses of mine that you care to have. Never mind! I may print another volume before long, and lay it at your feet. In the meantime, you _endure_ my 'Cry of the Children' better than I had antic.i.p.ated--just because I never antic.i.p.ated your being able to read it to the end, and was over-delicate of placing it in your hands on that very account. My dearest Mr. Boyd, you are right in your complaint against the rhythm. The first stanza came into my head in a hurricane, and I was obliged to make the other stanzas like it--_that_ is the whole mystery of the iniquity. If you look Mr. Lucas from head to foot, you will never find such a rhythm on his person. The whole crime of the versification belongs to _me_. So blame _me_, and by no means another poet, and I will humbly confess that I deserve to be blamed in some _measure_. There is a roughness, my own ear being witness, and I give up the body of my criminal to the rod of your castigation, kissing the last as if it were Flush.

A report runs in London that Mr. Boyd says of Elizabeth Barrett: 'She is a person of the most perverted judgment in England.' Now, if this be true, I shall not mend my evil position in your opinion, my very dear friend, by confessing that I differ with you, the more the longer I live, on the ground of what you call 'jumping lines.' I am speaking not of particular cases, but of the principle, the general principle, of these cases, and the tenacity of my judgment does not arise from the teaching of 'Mr. Lucas,' but from the deeper study of the old master-poets--English poets--those of the Elizabeth and James ages, before the corruption of French rhythms stole in with Waller and Denham, and was acclimated into a national inodorousness by Dryden and Pope. We differ so much upon this subject that we must proceed by agreeing to differ, and end, perhaps, by finding it agreeable to differ; there can be no possible use in an argument. Only you must be upright in justice, and find Wordsworth innocent of misleading me. So far from having read him more within these three years, I have read him _less_, and have taken no new review, I do a.s.sure you, of his position and character as a poet, and these facts are testified unto by the other fact that my poetry, neither in its best features nor its worst, is adjusted after the fas.h.i.+on of his school.

But I am writing too much; you will have no patience with me. 'The Excursion' is accused of being lengthy, and so you will tell me that I convict myself of plagiarism, _currente calamo_.

I have just finished a poem of some eight hundred lines, called 'The Vision of Poets,'[85] philosophical, allegorical--anything but popular. It is in stanzas, every one an octosyllabic triplet, which you will think odd, and I have not _sanguinity_ enough to defend.

May G.o.d bless you, my dearest Mr. Boyd! Yes, I heard--I was glad to hear--of your having resumed that which used to be so great a pleasure to you--Miss Marcus's society. I remain,

Affectionately and gratefully yours, ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

My love to dear Annie.

[Footnote 85: _Poetical Works_, i. 223.]

_To Mr. Westwood_ October 1843.

You are probably right in respect to Tennyson, for whom, with all my admiration of him, I would willingly secure more exaltation and a broader clasping of truth. Still, it is not possible to have so much beauty without a certain portion of truth, the position of the Utilitarians being true in the inverse. But I think as I did of 'uses'

and 'responsibilities,' and do hold that the poet is a preacher and must look to his doctrine.

Perhaps Mr. Tennyson will grow more solemn, like the sun, as his day goes on. In the meantime we have the n.o.ble 'Two Voices,' and, among other grand intimations of a teaching power, certain stanzas to J.K.

(I think the initials are) on the death of his brother,[86] which very deeply affected me.

Take away the last stanzas, which should be applied more definitely to the _body_, or cut away altogether as a lie against eternal verity, and the poem stands as one of the finest of monodies. The nature of human grief never surely was more tenderly intimated or touched--it brought tears to my eyes. Do read it. He is not a Christian poet, up to this time, but let us listen and hear his next songs. He is one of G.o.d's singers, whether he knows it or does not know it.

I am thinking, lifting up my pen, what I can write to you which is likely to be interesting to you. After all I come to chaos and silence, and even old night--it is growing so dark. I live in London, to be sure, and except for the glory of it I might live in a desert, so profound is my solitude and so complete my isolation from things and persons without. I lie all day, and day after day, on the sofa, and my windows do not even look into the street. To abuse myself with a vain deceit of rural life I have had ivy planted in a box, and it has flourished and spread over one window, and strikes against the gla.s.s with a little stroke from the thicker leaves when the wind blows at all briskly. _Then_ I think of forests and groves; it is my triumph when the leaves strike the window pane, and this is not a sound like a lament. Books and thoughts and dreams (almost too consciously _dreamed_, however, for me--the illusion of them has almost pa.s.sed) and domestic tenderness can and ought to leave n.o.body lamenting.

Also G.o.d's wisdom, deeply steeped in His love, _is_ as far as we can stretch out our hands.

[Footnote 86: The lines 'To J.S.,' which begin:

'The wind that beats the mountain blows More softly round the open wold.'

_To Mr. Westwood_ 50 Wimpole Street: December 26, 1843.

Dear Mr. Westwood,--You think me, perhaps, and not without apparent reason, ungrateful and insensible to your letter, but indeed I am neither one nor the other, and I am writing now to try and prove it to you. I was much touched by some tones of kindness in the letter, and it was welcome altogether, and I did not need the 'owl' which came after to waken me, because I was wide awake enough from the first moment; and now I see that you have been telling your beads, while I seemed to be telling nothing, in that dread silence of mine. May all true saints of poetry be propitious to the wearer of the 'Rosary.'

In answer to a question which you put to me long ago on the subject of books of theology, I will confess to you that, although I have read rather widely the divinity of the Greek Fathers, Gregory, Chrysostom, and so forth, and have of course informed myself in the works generally of our old English divines, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and so forth, I am not by any means a frequent reader of books of theology as such, and as the men of our times have made them. I have looked into the 'Tracts' from curiosity and to hear what the world was talking of, and I was disappointed _even_ in the degree of intellectual power displayed in them. From motives of a desire of theological instruction I very seldom read any book except G.o.d's own. The minds of persons are differently const.i.tuted; and it is no praise to mine to admit that I am apt to receive less of what is called edification from human discourses on divine subjects, than disturbance and hindrance. I read the Scriptures every day, and in as simple a spirit as I can; thinking as little as possible of the controversies engendered in that great suns.h.i.+ne, and as much as possible of the heat and glory belonging to it. It is a sure fact in my eyes that we do not require so much _more knowledge_, as a stronger apprehension, by the faith and affections, of what we already know.

You will be sorry to hear that Mr. Tennyson is not well, although his friends talk of nervousness, and do not fear much ultimate mischief....[87]

It is such a lovely _May_ day, that I am afraid of breaking the spell by writing down Christmas wishes.

Very faithfully yours, ELIZABETH BARRETT.

[Footnote 87: About the same date she writes to Home (_Letters to R.H.

Horne_, i. 86): 'I am very glad to hear that nothing really very bad is the matter with Tennyson. If anything were to happen to Tennyson, the world should go into mourning.']

_To Mr. Westwood_ 50 Wimpole Street: December 31, 1843.

If you do find the paper I was invited to write upon Wordsworth[88], you will see to which cla.s.s of your admiring or abhorring friends I belong. Perhaps you will cry out quickly, 'To the blind admirers, certes.' And I have a high admiration of Wordsworth. His spirit has worked a good work, and has freed into the capacity of work other n.o.ble spirits. He took the initiative in a great poetic movement, and is not only to be praised for what he has done, but for what he has helped his age to do. For the rest, Byron has more pa.s.sion and intensity, Sh.e.l.ley more fancy and music, Coleridge could see further into the unseen, and not one of those poets has insulted his own genius by the production of whole poems, such as I could name of Wordsworth's, the vulgarity of which is childish, and the childishness vulgar. Still, the wings of his genius are wide enough to cast a shadow over its feet, and our grat.i.tude should be stronger than our critical ac.u.men. Yes, I _will_ be a blind admirer of Wordsworth's. I _will_ shut my eyes and be blind. Better so, than see too well for the thankfulness which is his due from me....

Yes, I mean to print as much as I can find and make room for, 'Brown Rosary' and all. I am glad you liked 'Napoleon,'[89] but I shall be more glad if you decide when you see this new book that I have made some general progress in strength and expression. Sometimes I rise into hoping that I may have done so, or may do so still more.

The poet's work is no light work. His wheat will not grow without labour any more than other kinds of wheat, and the sweat of the spirit's brow is wrung by a yet harder necessity. And, thinking so, I am inclined to a little regret that you should have hastened your book even for the sake of a sentiment. Now you will be angry with me....

There are certain difficulties in the way of the critic unprofessional, as I know by experience. Our most sweet voices are scarcely admissible among the most sour ones of the regular brotherhood....