The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning I by Elizabeth Barrett Browning Robert Browning

Author:Elizabeth Barrett Browning Robert Browning [Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

E.B.B. to R.B.

Thursday.

[Post-mark, November 21, 1845.]

Thank you! and will you, if your sister made the copy of Landor's verses for me as well as for you, thank her from me for another kindness, ... not the second nor the third? For my own part, be sure that if I did not fall on the right subtle interpretation about the letters, at least I did not 'think it vain' of you! vain: when, supposing you really to have been over-gratified by such letters, it could have proved only an excess of humility!—But ... besides the subtlety,—you meant to be kind to me, you know,—and I had a pleasure and an interest in reading them—only that ... mind. Sir John Hanmer's, I was half angry with! Now is he not cold?—and is it not easy to see why he is forced to write his own scenes five times over and over? He might have mentioned the 'Duchess' I think; and he a poet! Mr. Chorley speaks some things very well—but what does he mean about 'execution,' en revanche? but I liked his letter and his candour in the last page of it. Will Mr. Warburton review you? does he mean that? Now do let me see any other letters you receive. May I? Of course Landor's 'dwells apart' from all: and besides the reason you give for being gratified by it, it is well that one prophet should open his mouth and prophesy and give his witness to the inspiration of another. See what he says in the letter.... 'You may stand quite alone if you will—and I think you will.' That is a noble testimony to a truth. And he discriminates—he understands and discerns—they are not words thrown out into the air. The 'profusion of imagery covering the depth of thought' is a true description. And, in the verses, he lays his finger just on your characteristics—just on those which, when you were only a poet to me, (only a poet: does it sound irreverent? almost, I think!) which, when you were only a poet to me, I used to study, characteristic by characteristic, and turn myself round and round in despair of being ever able to approach, taking them to be so essentially and intensely masculine that like effects were unattainable, even in a lower degree, by any female hand. Did I not tell you so once before? or oftener than once? And must not these verses of Landor's be printed somewhere—in the Examiner? and again in the Athenæum? if in the Examiner, certainly again in the Athenæum —it would be a matter of course. Oh those verses: how they have pleased me! It was an act worthy of him—and of you.

George has been properly 'indoctrinated,' and, we must hope, will do credit to my instructions. Just now ... just as I was writing ... he came in to say good-morning and good-night (he goes to chambers earlier than I receive visitors generally), and to ask with a smile, if I had 'a message for my friend' .

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