Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  May God bless you.

  Your ever affectionate

  BA.

  I hear that Guizot suffers intensely, and that there are fears lest he may sink. Not that the complaint is mortal.

  To Mr. Westwood

  Wimpole Street: April 9, 1845.

  Poor Hood! Ah! I had feared that the scene was closing on him. And I am glad that a little of the poor gratitude of the world is laid down at his door just now to muffle to his dying ear the harsher sounds of life. I forgive much to Sir Robert for the sake of that letter — though, after all, the minister is not high-hearted, or made of heroic stuff.

  I am delighted that you should appreciate Mr. Browning’s high power — very high, according to my view — very high, and various. Yes, ‘Paracelsus’ you should have. ‘Sordello’ has many fine things in it, but, having been thrown down by many hands as unintelligible, and retained in mine as certainly of the Sphinxine literature, with all its power, I hesitate to be imperious to you in my recommendations of it. Still, the book is worth being studied — study is necessary to it, as, indeed, though in a less degree, to all the works of this poet; study is peculiarly necessary to it. He is a true poet, and a poet, I believe, of a large ‘future in-rus, about to be.’ He is only growing to the height he will attain.

  To Mr. Westwood

  April 1845.

  The sin of Sphinxine literature I admit. Have I not struggled hard to renounce it? Do I not, day by day? Do you know that I have been told that I have written things harder to interpret than Browning himself? — only I cannot, cannot believe it — he is so very hard. Tell me honestly (and although I attributed the excessive good nature of the ‘Metropolitan’ criticism to you, I know that you can speak the truth truly!) if anything like the Sphinxineness of Browning, you discover in me; take me as far back as ‘The Seraphim’ volume and answer! As for Browning, the fault is certainly great, and the disadvantage scarcely calculable, it is so great. He cuts his language into bits, and one has to join them together, as young children do their dissected maps, in order to make any meaning at all, and to study hard before one can do it. Not that I grudge the study or the time. The depth and power of the significance (when it is apprehended) glorifies the puzzle. With you and me it is so; but with the majority of readers, even of readers of poetry, it is not and cannot be so.

  The consequence is, that he is not read except in a peculiar circle very strait and narrow. He will not die, because the principle of life is in him, but he will not live the warm summer life which is permitted to many of very inferior faculty, because he does not come out into the sun.

  Faithfully your friend,

  E.B. BARRETT.

  The following letter relates to the controversy raging round Miss Martineau and her mesmerism. Miss Barrett had evidently referred to it in a letter to Mr. Chorley, which has not been preserved.

  To Mr. Chorley

  50 Wimpole Street: April 28, 1845.

  Dear Mr. Chorley, — I felt quite sure that you would take my postscript for a womanish thing, and a little doubtful whether you would not take the whole allusion (in or out of a postscript) for an impertinent thing; but the impulse to speak was stronger than the fear of speaking; and from the peculiarities of my position, I have come to write by impulses just as other people talk by them. Still, if I had known that the subject was so painful to you, I certainly would not have touched on it, strong as my feeling has been about it, and full and undeniable as is my sympathy with our noble-minded friend, both as a woman and a thinker. Not that I consider (of course I cannot) that she has made out anything like a ‘fact’ in the Tynemouth story — not that I think the evidence offered in any sort sufficient; take it as it was in the beginning and unimpugned — not that I have been otherwise than of opinion throughout that she was precipitate and indiscreet, however generously so, in her mode and time of advocating the mesmeric question; but that she is at liberty as a thinking being (in my mind) to hold an opinion, the grounds of which she cannot yet justify to the world. Do you not think she may be? Have you not opinions yourself beyond what you can prove to others? Have we not all? And because some of the links of the outer chain of a logical argument fail, or seem to fail, are we therefore to have our ‘honours’ questioned, because we do not yield what is suspended to an inner uninjured chain of at once subtler and stronger formation? For what I venture to object to in the argument of the ‘Athenaeum’ is the making a moral obligation of an intellectual act, which is the first step and gesture (is it not?) in all persecution for opinion; and the involving of the ‘honour’ of an opponent in the motion of recantation she is invited to. This I do venture to exclaim against. I do cry aloud against this; and I do say this, that when we call it ‘hard,’ we are speaking of it softly. Why, consider how it is! The ‘Athenaeum’ has done quite enough to disprove the proving of the wreck story, and no more at all. The disproving of the proof of the wreck story is indeed enough to disprove the wreck story and to disprove mesmerism itself (as far as the proof of mesmerism depends on the proof of the wreck story, and no farther) with all doubters and undetermined inquirers; but with the very large class of previous believers, this disproof of a proof is a mere accident, and cannot be expected to have much logical consequence. Believing that such things may be as this revelation of a wreck, they naturally are less exacting of the stabilities of the proving process. What we think probable we do not call severely for the proof of. Moreover Miss Martineau is not only a believer in the mysteries of mesmerism (and she wrote to me the other day that in Birmingham, where she is, she has present cognisance of three cases of clairvoyance), but she is a believer in the personal integrity of her witnesses. She has what she has well called an ‘incommunicable confidence.’ And this, however incommunicable, is sufficiently comprehensible to all persons who know what personal faith is, to place her ‘honour,’ I do maintain, high above any suspicion, any charge with the breath of man’s lips. I am sure you agree with me, dear Mr. Chorley — ah! it will be a comfort and joy together. Dear Miss Mitford and I often quarrel softly about literary life and its toils and sorrows, she against and I in favour of; but we never could differ about the worth and comfort of domestic affection.

  Ever sincerely yours,

  ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

  I am delighted to hear of the novel. And the comedy?

  To Mr. Chorley

  50 Wimpole Street: April 28, 1845.

  Dear Mr. Chorley, — ... For Miss Martineau, is it not true that she has admitted her wreck story to have no proof? Surely she has. Surely she said that the evidence was incapable, at this point of time, of justification to the exoteric, and that the question had sunk now to one of character, to which her opponent answered that it had always been one of character. And you must admit that the direct and unmitigated manner of depreciating the reputation, not merely of Jane Arrowsmith, but of Mrs. Wynyard, a personal friend of Miss Martineau’s to whom she professes great obligations, could not be otherwise than exasperating to a woman of her generous temper, and this just in the crisis of her gratitude for her restoration to life and enjoyment by the means (as she considers it) of this friend. Not that I feel at all convinced of her having been cured by mesmerism; I have told her openly that I doubt it a little, and she is not angry with me for saying so. Also, the wreck story, and (as you suggest) the three new cases of clairvoyance; why, one cannot, you know, give one’s specific convictions to general sweeping testimonies, with a mist all round them. Still, I do lean to believing this class of mysteries, and I see nothing more incredible in the apocalypse of the wreck and other marvels of clairvoyance, than in that singular adaptation of another person’s senses, which is a common phenomenon of the simple forms of mesmerism. If it is credible that a person in a mesmeric sleep can taste the sourness of the vinegar on another person’s palate, I am ready to go the whole length of the transmigration of senses. But after all, except from hearing so much, I am as ignorant as you are, in my own experience. One of my sisters was thrown int
o a sort of swoon, and could not open her eyelids, though she heard what passed, once or twice or thrice; and she might have been a prophetess by this time, perhaps, if, partly from her own feeling on the subject, and partly from mine, she had not determined never to try the experiment again. It is hideous and detestable to my imagination; as I confessed to you, it makes my blood run backwards; and if I were you, I would not (with the nervous weakness you speak of) throw myself into the way of it, I really would not. Think of a female friend of mine begging me to give her a lock of my hair, or rather begging my sister to ‘get it for her,’ that she might send it to a celebrated prophet of mesmerism in Paris, to have an oracle concerning me. Did you ever, since the days of the witches, hear a more ghastly proposition? It shook me so with horror, I had scarcely voice to say ‘no,’ hough I did say it very emphatically at last, I assure you. A lock of my hair for a Parisian prophet? Why, if I had yielded, I should have felt the steps of pale spirits treading as thick as snow all over my sofa and bed, by day and night, and pulling a corresponding lock of hair on my head at awful intervals. I, who was born with a double set of nerves, which are always out of order; the most excitable person in the world, and nearly the most superstitious. I should have been scarcely sane at the end of a fortnight, I believe of myself! Do you remember the little spirit in gold shoe-buckles, who was a familiar of Heinrich Stilling’s? Well, I should have had a French one to match the German, with Balzac’s superfine boot-polish in place of the buckles, as surely as I lie here a mortal woman.

  I congratulate you (amid all cares and anxieties) upon the view of Naples in the distance, but chiefly on your own happy and just estimate of your selected position in life. It does appear to me wonderfully and mournfully wrong, when men of letters, as it is too much the fashion for them to do, take to dishonoring their profession by fruitless bewailings and gnashings of teeth; when, all the time, it must be their own fault if it is not the noblest in the world. Miss Mitford treats me as a blind witness in this case; because I have seen nothing of the literary world, or any other sort of world, and yet cry against her ‘pen and ink’ cry. It is the cry I least like to hear from her lips, of all others; and it is unworthy of them altogether. On the lips of a woman of letters, it sounds like jealousy (which it cannot be with her), as on the lips of a woman of the world, like ingratitude. Madame Girardin’s ‘Ecole des Journalistes’ deserved Jules Janin’s reproof of it; and there is something noble and touching in that feeling of brotherhood among men of letters, which he invokes. I am so glad to hear you say that I am right, glad for your sake and glad for mine. In fact, there is something which is attractive to me, and which has been attractive ever since I was as high as this table, even in the old worn type of Grub Street authors and garret poets. Men and women of letters are the first in the whole world to me, and I would rather be the least among them, than ‘dwell in the courts of princes.’

  Forgive me for writing so fast and far. Just as if you had nothing to do but to read me. Oh, for patience for the novel.

  I am, faithfully yours,

  ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

  To Miss Thomson

  50 Wimpole Street: Friday, May 16, 1845 [postmark].

  I write one line to thank you, dear Miss Thomson, for your translation (so far too liberal, though true to the spirit of my intention) of my work for your album. How could it not be a pleasure to me to work for you?

  As to my using those manuscripts otherwise than in your service, I do not at all think of it, and I wish to say this. Perhaps I do not (also) partake quite your ‘divine fury’ for converting our sex into Greek scholarship, and I do not, I confess, think it as desirable as you do. Where there is a love for poetry, and thirst for beauty strong enough to justify labour, let these impulses, which are noble, be obeyed; but in the case of the multitude it is different; and the mere fashion of scholarship among women would be a disagreeable vain thing, and worse than vain. You, who are a Greek yourself, know that the Greek language is not to be learnt in a flash of lightning and by Hamiltonian systems, but that it swallows up year after year of studious life. Now I have a ‘doxy’ (as Warburton called it), that there is no exercise of the mind so little profitable to the mind as the study of languages. It is the nearest thing to a passive recipiency — is it not? — as a mental action, though it leaves one as weary as ennui itself. Women want to be made to think actively: their apprehension is quicker than that of men, but their defect lies for the most part in the logical faculty and in the higher mental activities. Well, and then, to remember how our own English poets are neglected and scorned; our poets of the Elizabethan age! I would rather that my countrywomen began by loving these.

  Not that I would blaspheme against Greek poetry, or depreciate the knowledge of the language as an attainment. I congratulate you on it, though I never should think of trying to convert other women into a desire for it. Forgive me.

  To think of Mr. Burges’s comparing my Nonnus to the right Nonnus makes my hair stand on end, and the truth is I had flattered myself that nobody would take such trouble. I have not much reverence for Nonnus, and have pulled him and pushed him and made him stand as I chose, never fearing that my naughty impertinences would be brought to light. For the rest, I thank you gratefully (and may I respectfully and gratefully thank Miss Bayley?) for the kind words of both of you, both in this letter and as my sister heard them. It is delightful to me to find such grace in the eyes of dearest Mr. Kenyon’s friends, and I remain, dear Miss Thomson,

  Truly yours, and gladly,

  E.B.B.

  If there should be anything more at any time for me to do, I trust to your trustfulness.

  To Miss Thomson

  50 Wimpole Street: Monday .

  My dear Miss Thomson, — Believe of me that it can only give me pleasure when you are affectionate enough to treat me as a friend; and for the rest, nobody need apologise for taking another into the vineyards — least Miss Bayley and yourself to me. At the first thought I felt sure that there must be a great deal about vines in these Greeks of ours, and am surprised, I confess, in turning from one to another, to find how few passages of length are quotable, and how the images drop down into a line or two. Do you know the passage in the seventh ‘Odyssey’ where there is a vineyard in different stages of ripeness? — of which Pope has made the most, so I tore up what I began to write, and leave you to him. It is in Alcinous’ gardens, and between the first and second hundred lines of the book. The one from the ‘Iliad,’ open to Miss Bayley’s objection, is yet too beautiful and appropriate, I fancy, for you to throw over. Curious it is that my first recollection went from that shield of Achilles to Hesiod’s ‘Shield of Hercules,’ from which I send you a version — leaving out of it what dear Miss Bayley would object to on a like ground with the other:

  Some gathered grapes, with reap-hooks in their hands,

  While others bore off from the gathering hands

  Whole baskets-full of bunches, black and white,

  From those great ridges heaped up into fight,

  With vine-leaves and their curling tendrils. So

  They bore the baskets ...

  ... Yes! and all were saying

  Their jests, while each went staggering in a row

  Beneath his grape-load to the piper’s playing.

  The grapes were purple-ripe. And here, in fine,

  Men trod them out, and there they drained the wine.

  In the ‘Works and Days’ Hesiod says again, what is not worth your listening to, perhaps:

  And when that Sinus and Orion come

  To middle heaven, and when Aurora — she

  O’ the rosy fingers — looks inquiringly

  Full on Arcturus, straightway gather home

  The general vintage. And, I charge you, see

  All, in the sun and open air, outlaid

  Ten days and nights, and five days in the shade.

  The sixth day, pour in vases the fine juice —

  The gift of Bacchus, who gives joys fo
r use.

  Anacreon talks to the point so well that you must forgive him, I think, for being Anacreontic, and take from his hands what is not defiled. The translation you send me does not ‘smell of Anacreon,’ nor please me. Where did you get it? Would this be at all fresher?

  Grapes that wear a purple skin,

  Men and maidens carry in,

  Brimming baskets on their shoulders,

  Which they topple one by one

  Down the winepress. Men are holders

  Of the place there, and alone

  Tread the grapes out, crush them down,

  Letting loose the soul of wine —

  Praising Bacchus as divine,

  With the loud songs called his own!

  You are aware of the dresser of the vine in Homer’s ‘Hymn to Mercury’ translated so exquisitely by Shelley, and of a very beautiful single figure in Theocritus besides. Neither probably would suit your purpose. In the ‘Pax’ of Aristophanes there is an idle ‘Chorus’ who talks of looking at the vines and watching the grapes ripen, and eating them at last, but there is nothing of vineyard work in it, so I dismiss the whole.