Oh, how angry you will be with me. But you seemed tolerably prepared in your last letter for my being in a passion.... Ever affectionately yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
Why should I be angry with Flush? He does not believe in Ossian. Oh, I assure you he doesn’t.
The following letter was called forth by a criticism of Mr. Kenyon’s on Miss Barrett’s poem, The Dead Pan, which he had seen in manuscript; but it also meets some criticisms which others had made upon her last volume (see above, p. 65).
To John Kenyan
Wimpole Street: March 25, 1843.
My very dear Cousin, — Your kindness having touched me much, and your good opinion, whether literary or otherwise, being of great price to me, it is even with tears in my eyes that I begin to write to you upon a difference between us. And what am I to say? To admit, of course, in the first place, the injuriousness to the ‘popularity,’ of the scriptural tone. But am I to sacrifice a principle to popularity? Would you advise me to do so? Should I be more worthy of your kindness by doing so? and could you (apart from the kindness) call my refusal to do so either perverseness or obstinacy? Even if you could, I hope you will try a little to be patient with me, and to forgive, at least, what you find it impossible to approve.
My dear cousin, if you had not reminded me of Wordsworth’s exclamation —
I would rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn —
and if he had never made it, I do think that its significance would have occurred to me, by a sort of instinct, in connection with this discussion. Certainly I would rather be a pagan whose religion was actual, earnest, continual — for week days, work days, and song days — than I would be a Christian who, from whatever motive, shrank from hearing or uttering the name of Christ out of a ‘church.’ I am no fanatic, but I like truth and earnestness in all things, and I cannot choose but believe that such a Christian shows but ill beside such a pagan. What pagan poet ever thought of casting his gods out of his poetry? In what pagan poem do they not shine and thunder? And if I — to approach the point in question — if I, writing a poem the end of which is the extolment of what I consider to be Christian truth over the pagan myths shrank even there from naming the name of my God lest it should not meet the sympathies of some readers, or lest it should offend the delicacies of other readers, or lest, generally, it should be unfit for the purposes of poetry in what more forcible manner than by that act (I appeal to Philip against Philip) can I controvert my own poem, or secure to myself and my argument a logical and unanswerable shame? If Christ’s name is improperly spoken in that poem, then indeed is Schiller right, and the true gods of poetry are to be sighed for mournfully. For be sure that Burns was right, and that a poet without devotion is below his own order, and that poetry without religion will gradually lose its elevation. And then, my dear friend, we do not live among dreams. The Christian religion is true or it is not, and if it is true it offers the highest and purest objects of contemplation. And the poetical faculty, which expresses the highest moods of the mind, passes naturally to the highest objects. Who can separate these things? Did Dante? Did Tasso? Did Petrarch? Did Calderon? Did Chaucer? Did the poets of our best British days? Did any one of these shrink from speaking out Divine names when the occasion came? Chaucer, with all his jubilee of spirit and resounding laughter, had the name of Jesus Christ and God as frequently to familiarity on his lips as a child has its father’s name. You say ‘our religion is not vital — not week-day — enough.’ Forgive me, but that is a confession of a wrong, not an argument. And if a poet be a poet, it is his business to work for the elevation and purification of the public mind, rather than for his own popularity! while if he be not a poet, no sacrifice of self-respect will make amends for a defective faculty, nor ought to make amends.
My conviction is that the poetry of Christianity will one day be developed greatly and nobly, and that in the meantime we are wrong, poetically as morally, in desiring to restrain it. No, I never felt repelled by any Christian phraseology in Cowper — although he is not a favorite poet of mine from other causes — nor in Southey, nor even in James Montgomery, nor in Wordsworth where he writes ‘ecclesiastically,’ nor in Christopher North, nor in Chateaubriand, nor in Lamartine.
It is but two days ago since I had a letter — and not from a fanatic — to reproach my poetry for not being Christian enough, and this is not the first instance, nor the second, of my receiving such a reproach. I tell you this to open to you the possibility of another side to the question, which makes, you see, a triangle of it!
Can you bear with such a long answer to your letter, and forbear calling it a ‘preachment’? There may be such a thing as an awkward and untimely introduction of religion, I know, and I have possibly been occasionally guilty in this way. But for my principle I must contend, for it is a poetical principle and more, and an entire sincerity in respect to it is what I owe to you and to myself. Try to forgive me, dear Mr. Kenyon. I would propitiate your indulgence for me by a libation of your own eau de Cologne poured out at your feet! It is excellent eau de Cologne, and you are very kind to me, but, notwithstanding all, there is a foreboding within me that my ‘conventicleisms’ will be inodorous in your nostrils.
[Incomplete.]
To John Kenyon
Tuesday [about March 1843].
My very dear Cousin, — I have read your letter again and again, and feel your kindness fully and earnestly. You have advised me about the poem, entering into the questions referring to it with the warmth rather of the author of it than the critic of it, and this I am sensible of as absolutely as anyone can be. At the same time, I have a strong perception rather than opinion about the poem, and also, if you would not think it too serious a word to use in such a place, I have a conscience about it. It was not written in a desultory fragmentary way, the last stanzas thrown in, as they might be thrown out, but with a design, which leans its whole burden on the last stanzas. In fact, the last stanzas were in my mind to say, and all the others presented the mere avenue to the end of saying them. Therefore I cannot throw them out — I cannot yield to the temptation even of pleasing you by doing so; I make a compromise with myself, and do not throw them out, and do not print the poem. Now say nothing against this, my dear cousin, because I am obstinate, as you know, as you have good evidence for knowing. I will not either alter or print it. Then you have your manuscript copy, which you can cut into any shape you please as long as you keep it out of print; and seeing that the poem really does belong to you, having had its origin in your paraphrase of Schiller’s stanzas, I see a great deal of poetical justice in the manuscript copyright remaining in your hands. For the rest I shall have quite enough to print and to be responsible for without it, and I am quite satisfied to let it be silent for a few years until either I or you (as may be the case even with me!) shall have revised our judgments in relation to it.
This being settled, you must suffer me to explain (for mere personal reasons, and not for the good of the poem) that no mortal priest (of St. Peter’s or otherwise) is referred to in a particular stanza, but the Saviour Himself. Who is ‘the High Priest of our profession,’ and the only ‘priest’ recognised in the New Testament. In the same way the altar candles are altogether spiritual, or they could not be supposed, even by the most amazing poetical exaggeration, to ‘light the earth and skies.’ I explain this, only that I may not appear to you to have compromised the principle of the poem, by compromising any truth (such in my eyes) for the sake of a poetical effect.
And now I will not say any more. I know that you will be inclined to cry, ‘Print it in any case,’ but I will entreat of your kindness, which I have so much right to trust in while entreating, not to say one such word. Be kind, and let me follow my own way silently. I have not, indeed, like a spoilt child in a fret, thrown the poem up because I would not alter it, though you have done much to spoil me. I act advisedly, and have made up my mind as to what is the wisest and best thing to do, and personally th
e pleasantest to myself, after a good deal of serious reflection. ‘Pan is dead,’ and so best, for the present at least.
I shall take your advice about the preface in every respect, and thanks for the letter and Taylor’s memoirs.
Miss Mitford talks of coming to town for a day, and of bringing Flush with her, as soon as the weather settles, and to-day looks so like it that I have mused this morning on the possibility of breaking my prison doors and getting into the next room. Only there is a forbidding north wind, they say.
Don’t be vexed with me, dear Mr. Kenyon. You know there are obstinacies in the world as well as mortalities, and thereto appertaining. And then you will perceive through all mine, that it is difficult for me to act against your judgment so far as to put my own tenacity into print.
Ever gratefully and affectionately yours,
E.B.B.
It is to the honour of America that it recognised from the first the genius of Miss Barrett; and for a large part of her life some of the closest of her personal and literary connections were with Americans. The same is true in both respects of Robert Browning. As appears from some letters printed farther on in these volumes, at a time when the sale of his poems in England was almost infinitesimal, they were known and highly prized in the United States. Expressions of Mrs. Browning’s sympathy with America and of gratitude for the kindly feelings of Americans recur frequently in the letters, and it is probable that there are still extant in the States many letters written to friends and correspondents there. Only three or four such have been made available for the present collection; and of these the first follows here in its place in the chronological sequence. It was written to Mr. Cornelius Mathews, then editor of ‘Graham’s Magazine,’ who had invited Miss Barrett to send contributions to his periodical. The warm expression in it of sympathy with the poetry of Robert Browning, whom she did not yet know personally, is especially interesting to readers of this later day, who, like the spectators at a Greek tragedy, watch the development of a drama of which the dénouement is already known to them.
To Cornelius Mathews
50 Wimpole Street: April 28, 1843.
My dear Mr. Mathews, — In replying to your kind letter I send some more verse for Graham’s, praying such demi-semi-gods as preside over contributors to magazines that I may not appear over-loquacious to my editor. Of course it is not intended to thrust three or four poems into one number. My pluralities go to you simply to ‘bide your time,’ and be used one by one as the opportunity is presented. In the meanwhile you have received, I hope, a short letter written to explain my unwillingness to apply, as you desired me at first, to Wiley and Putnam — an unwillingness justified by what you told me afterwards. I did not apply, nor have I applied, and I would rather not apply at all. Perhaps I shall hear from them presently. The pamphlet on International Copyright is welcome at a distance, but it has not come near me yet; and for all your kindness in relation to the prospective gift of your works I thank you again and earnestly. You are kind to me in many ways, and I would willingly know as much of your intellectual habits as you teach me of your genial feelings. This ‘Pathfinder’ (what an excellent name for an American journal!) I also owe to you, with the summing up of your performances in it, and with a notice of Mr. Browning’s ‘Blot on the Scutcheon,’ which would make one poet furious (the ‘infelix Talfourd’) and another a little melancholy — namely, Mr. Browning himself. There is truth on both sides, but it seems to me hard truth on Browning. I do assure you I never saw him in my life — do not know him even by correspondence — and yet, whether through fellow-feeling for Eleusinian mysteries, or whether through the more generous motive of appreciation of his powers, I am very sensitive to the thousand and one stripes with which the assembly of critics doth expound its vocation over him, and the ‘Athenaeum,’ for instance, made me quite cross and misanthropical last week. The truth is — and the world should know the truth — it is easier to find a more faultless writer than a poet of equal genius. Don’t let us fall into the category of the sons of Noah. Noah was once drunk, indeed, but once he built the ark. Talking of poets, would your ‘Graham’s Miscellany’ care at all to have occasional poetical contributions from Mr. Horne? I am in correspondence with him, and I think I could manage an arrangement upon the same terms as my engagement rests on, if you please and your friends please, that is, and without formality, if it should give you any pleasure. He is a writer of great power, I think. And this reminds me that you may be looking all the while for the ‘Athenaeum’s’ reply to your friend’s proposition — of which I lost no time in apprising the editor, Mr. Dilke, and here are some of his words: ‘An American friend who had been long in England, and often conversed with me on the subject, resolved on his return to establish such a correspondence. In all things worth knowing — all reviews of good books’ (which ‘are published first or simultaneously,’ says Mr. Dilke, ‘in London’), ‘he was anticipated, and after some months he was driven of necessity to geological surveys, centenary celebrations, progress of railroads, manufactures, &c., and thus the prospect was abandoned altogether.’ Having made this experiment, Mr. Dilke is unwilling to risk another. Neither must we blame him for the reserve. When the international copyright shall at once protect the national meum and tuum in literature and give it additional fullness and value, we shall cease to say insolently to you that what we want of your books we will get without your help, but as it is, the Mr. Dilkes of us have nothing much more courteous to do. I wish I could have been of any use to your friend — I have done what I could. In regard to critical papers of mine, I would willingly give myself up to you, seeing your good nature; but it is the truth that I never published any prose papers at all except the series on the Greek Christian poets and the other series on the English poets in the ‘Athenaeum’ of last year, and both of which you have probably seen. Afterwards I threw up my brief and went back to my poetry, in which I feel that I must do whatever I am equal to doing at all. That life is short and art long appears to us more true than usual when we lie all day long on a sofa and are as frightened of the east wind as if it were a tiger. Life is not only short, but uncertain, and art is not only long, but absorbing. What have I to do with writing ‘scandal’ (as Mr. Jones would say) upon my neighbour’s work, when I have not finished my own? So I threw up my brief into Mr. Dilke’s hands, and went back to my verses. Whenever I print another volume you shall have it, if Messrs. Wiley and Putnam will convey it to you. How can I send you, by the way, anything I may have to send you? Why will you not, as a nation, embrace our great penny post scheme, and hold our envelopes in all acceptation? You do not know — cannot guess — what a wonderful liberty our Rowland Hill has given to British spirits, and how we ‘flash a thought’ instead of ‘wafting’ it from our extreme south to our extreme north, paying ‘a penny for our thought’ and for the electricity included. I recommend you our penny postage as the most successful revolution since the ‘glorious three days’ of Paris.
And so, you made merry with my scorn of my ‘Prometheus.’ Believe me — believe me absolutely — I did not strike that others might spare, but from an earnest remorse. When you know me better, you will know, I hope, that I am true, whether right or wrong, and you know already that I am right in this thing, the only merit of the translation being its closeness. Can I be of any use to you, dear Mr. Mathews? When I can, make use of me. You surprise and disappoint me in your sketch of the Boston poet, for the letter he wrote to me struck me as frank and honest. I wonder if he made any use of the verses I sent him; and I wonder what I sent him — for I never made a note of it, through negligence, and have quite forgotten. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Sigourney? She has offended us much by her exposition of Mrs. Southey’s letter, and I must say not without cause. I rejoice in the progress of ‘Wakondah,’ wishing the influences of mountain and river to be great over him and in him. And so I will say the ‘God bless you’ your kindness cares to hear, and remain,
Sincerely and thankfully yours,
> ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
(Endorsed in another hand)
E.B. Barrett, London, received May 12, 1843,
4 poems, previously furnished to Graham’s Magazine, $50.
To John Kenyan
May 1, 1843
My dear Cousin, — Here is my copyright for you, and you will see that I have put ‘word’ instead of ‘sound,’ as certainly the proper ‘word.’ Do let me thank you once more for all the trouble and interest you have taken with me and in me. Observe besides that I have altered the title according to your unconscious suggestion, and made it ‘The Dead Pan,’ which is a far better name, I think, than the repetition of the refrain.
But I spoil my exemplary docility so far, by confessing that I don’t like ‘scornful children’ half — no, not half so well as my ‘railing children,’ although, to be sure, you proved to me that the last was nigh upon nonsense. You proved it — that is, you almost proved it, for don’t we say — at least, mightn’t we say— ‘the thunder was silent’? ‘thunder’ involving the idea of noise, as much as ‘railing children’ do. Consider this — I give it up to you.
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 153