Where can I look for
consolation
or ease?
Selection of English Letters
1819.
DEAR SIR,
The droll remarks of the _Quarterly_, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived
as safe as such poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do.
I am on the point of sending to you 250 copies of a work which I have
printed in Italy; which you will have to pay four or five pounds duty
upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you the _kind of thing_ it is,
and in the course of the winter I shall send directions for its
publication, _until the arrival of which directions, I request that
you would have the kindness not_ to open the box, _or, if by necessity
it is opened, to abstain from observing yourself or permitting others
to observe, what it contains_. I trust this confidently to you, it
being of consequence. Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no
reference, direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, or personal
satire, and that this precaution is merely literary.
The _Prometheus_, a poem in my best style, whatever that may amount
to, will arrive with it, but in MS. , which you can print and publish
in the season. It is the most perfect of my productions.
Southey wrote the article in question, I am well aware. Observe the
impudence of the man in speaking of himself. The only remark worth
notice in this piece is the assertion that I imitate Wordsworth.
It may as well be said that Lord Byron imitates Wordsworth, or that
Wordsworth imitates Lord Byron, both being great poets, and deriving
from the new springs of thought and feeling, which the great events
of our age have exposed to view, a similar tone of sentiment, imagery,
and expression. A certain similarity all the best writers of any
particular age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of that age
acting on all. This I had explained in my _Preface_, which the
writer was too disingenuous to advert to. As to the other trash, and
particularly that lame attack on my personal character, which was
meant so ill, and which I am not the man to feel, 'tis all nothing. I
am glad, with respect to that part of it which alludes to Hunt, that
it should so have happened that I dedicate, as you will see, a work
which has all the capacities for being popular to that excellent
person. I was amused, too, with the finale; it is like the end of the
first act of an opera, when that tremendous concordant discord sets
up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It
describes the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God; his
pulling me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh; my
calling out like the devil who was _game_ to the last; swearing and
cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postilion on
Mount Cenis; entreating everybody to drown themselves; pretending not
to be drowned myself when I _am_ drowned; and lastly, _being_ drowned.
You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on Hunt, and
ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship, and the name of the
captain, and whether he has any bill of lading, which, if he has, you
would oblige me by sending, together with the rest of the information,
by return of post, addressed to the Post Office, Florence.
To MRS. HUNT
_Keats and some others_
[Pisa] 11 _Nov_. 1820.
MY BEST MARIANNE,
I am delighted to hear that you complain of me for not writing to you,
although I have much more reason to complain of you for not writing to
me. At least it promises me a letter from you, and you know with what
pleasure we receive, and with what anxiety we expect intelligence from
you--almost the only friends who now remain to us.
I am afraid that the strict system of expense to which you are limited
annoys you all very much, and that Hunt's health suffers both from
that and from the incredible exertions which I see by the _Indicators_
and the _Examiners_ that he is making. Would to Heaven that I had the
power of doing you some good! but when you are sure that the wish is
sincere, the bare expression of it may help to cheer you.
The Gisbornes are arrived, and have brought news of you, and some
books, the principal part of which, however, are yet to arrive by
sea. Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called
_Hyperion_ promises for him that he is destined to become one of the
first writers of the age. His other things are imperfect enough, and,
what is worse, written in the bad sort of style which is becoming
fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and
Wordsworth. But of all these things nothing is worse than ----, in
spite of Hunt's extracting the only good stanzas, with his usual good
nature. Indeed, _I_ ought not to complain of Hunt's good nature, for
no one owes so much to it. Is not the vulgarity of these wretched
imitations of Lord Byron carried to a pitch of the sublime? His
indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human
nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only affects the
libertine: he is, really, a very amiable, friendly, and agreeable
man, I hear. But is not this monstrous? In Lord Byron all this has
an analogy with the general system of his character, and the wit and
poetry which surround hide with their light the darkness of the thing
itself. They contradict it even; they prove that the strength and
beauty of human nature can survive and conquer all that appears most
inconsistent with it. But for a writer to be at once filthy and dull
is a crime against gods, men, and columns. For Heaven's sake do not
show this to any one but Hunt, for it would irritate the wasp's nest
of the irritable race of poets.
Where is Keats now? I am anxiously expecting him in Italy, when I
shall take care to bestow every possible attention on him. I consider
his a most valuable life, and I am deeply interested in his safety. I
intend to be the physician both of his body and his soul, to keep
the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and Spanish. I am aware,
indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me;
and this is an additional motive, and will be an added pleasure.
We are at this moment removing from the Bagni to Pisa, for the Serchio
has broken its banks, and all the country about is under water. An old
friend and fellow-townsman of mine, Captain Medwin, is on a visit to
us at present, and we anxiously expect Keats, to whom I would write if
I knew where to address.
Adieu, my dear Marianne. Write soon; kiss all the babes for me, and
tell me news of them, and give my love to Bessy and Hunt.
To LEIGH HUNT
_A literary collaboration_
Pisa, 26 _Aug. _ 1821.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,
Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at
Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination, on his part, to
come and live at Pisa; and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung'
Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message
which he desires me to give you, and which, I think, ought to add
to your determination--for such a one I hope you have formed--of
restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these
'regions mild of calm and serene air'.
He proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me,
in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the
contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and
share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was
never brought to bear. There can be no doubt that the _profits_ of
any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various,
yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As for myself, I am for the
present only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know
each other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to entrust you with
a secret which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord Byron) nothing
would induce me to share in the profits, and still less, in the
borrowed splendour of such a partnership. You and he, in different
manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different manner, but
in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success. Do not
let my frankness with you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than
Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station
in modern literature which the universal voice of my contemporaries
forbids me either to stoop or to aspire to. I am, and I desire to be,
nothing.
I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your
journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would
never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the word; and I
am as jealous for my friend as for myself. But I suppose that I shall
at last make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the
many obligations he has conferred on me. I know I need only ask.
I think I have never told you how very much I like your _Amyntas_; it
almost reconciles me to translations. In another sense I still demur.
You might have written another such a poem as the _Nymphs_, with no
access of efforts. I am full of thoughts and plans, and should do
something, if the feeble and irritable frame which incloses it was
willing to obey the spirit. I fancy that then I should do great
things. Before this you will have seen _Adonais_. Lord Byron, I
suppose from modesty, on account of his being mentioned in it, did
not say a word of _Adonais_, though he was loud in his praise of
_Prometheus_, and, what you will not agree with him in, censure of
the _Cenci_. Certainly, if _Marino Faliero_ is a drama, the _Cenci_
is not--but that between ourselves. Lord Byron is reformed, as far
as gallantry goes, and lives with a beautiful and sentimental Italian
lady, who is as much attached to him as may be. I trust greatly to his
intercourse with you, for his creed to become as pure as he thinks his
conduct is. He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker
of aristocracy wants to be cut out.
JOHN KEATS
1795-1821
To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS
_Burns's cottage_
Maybole, 11 _July_ [1818].
MY DEAR REYNOLDS,
. . . I am approaching Burns's cottage very fast. We have made continual
inquiries from the time we saw his tomb at Dumfries. His name, of
course, is known all about: his great reputation among the plodding
people is, 'that he wrote a good _mony_ sensible things'. One of the
pleasantest means of annulling self is approaching such a shrine as
the Cottage of Burns: we need not think of his misery--that is all
gone, bad luck to it! I shall look upon it hereafter with unmixed
pleasure, as I do my Stratford-on-Avon day with Bailey. I shall fill
this sheet for you in the Bardie's country, going no further than
this, till I get to the town of Ayr, which will be a nine miles' walk
to tea.
We were talking on different and indifferent things, when, on a
sudden, we turned a corner upon the immediate country of Ayr. The
sight was as rich as possible. I had no conception that the native
place of Burns was so beautiful; the idea I had was more desolate: his
'_Rigs of Barley_' seemed always to me but a few strips of green on a
cold hill--Oh, prejudice! --It was as rich as Devon. I endeavoured
to drink in the prospect, that I might spin it out to you, as the
silkworm makes silk from mulberry leaves. I cannot recollect it.
Besides all the beauty, there were the mountains of Arran Isle, black
and huge over the sea. We came down upon everything suddenly; there
were in our way the 'bonny Doon', with the brig that Tam o' Shanter
crossed, Kirk Alloway, Burns's Cottage, and then the Brigs of Ayr.
First we stood upon the Bridge across the Doon, surrounded by every
phantasy of green in tree, meadow, and hill: the stream of the Doon,
as a farmer told us, is covered with trees 'from head to foot'.
You know those beautiful heaths, so fresh against the weather of a
summer's evening; there was one stretching along behind the trees.
I wish I knew always the humour my friends would be in at opening
a letter of mine, to suit it to them as nearly as possible. I could
always find an egg-shell for melancholy, and, as for merriment, a
witty humour will turn anything to account. My head is sometimes in
such a whirl in considering the million likings and antipathies of our
moments, that I can get into no settled strain in my letters. My wig!
Burns and sentimentality coming across you and Frank Floodgate in the
office. Oh, Scenery, that thou shouldst be crushed between two puns!
As for them, I venture the rascalliest in the Scotch region. I hope
Brown does not put them in his journal: if he does, I must sit on the
cutty-stool all next winter. We went to Kirk Alloway. 'A prophet is
no prophet in his own country. ' We went to the Cottage and took some
whisky. I wrote a sonnet for the mere sake of writing some lines under
the roof: they are so bad I cannot transcribe them. The man at the
cottage was a great bore with his anecdotes. I hate the rascal. His
life consists in fuzy, fuzzy, fuzziest. He drinks glasses, five for
the quarter, and twelve for the hour; he is a mahogany-faced old
jackass who knew Burns: he ought to have been kicked for having spoken
to him. He calls himself 'a curious old bitch', but he is a flat
old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the
flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give
a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in
jest--this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog
made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about
scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable
reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes
from Homer only to see close before you the real Isle of Tenedos. You
would rather read Homer afterwards than remember yourself. One song
of Burns's is of more worth to you than all I could think for a whole
year in his native country. His misery is a dead weight upon the
nimbleness of one's quill; I tried to forget it--to drink toddy
without any care--to write a merry sonnet--it won't do--he talked, he
drank with blackguards; he was miserable. We can see horribly clear,
in the works of such a man, his whole life, as if we were God's
spies. . . .
TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE
_The poetic character_
Hampstead, 27 _Oct_. 1818.
MY DEAR WOODHOUSE,
Your letter gave me great satisfaction, more on account of its
friendliness than any relish of that matter in it which is accounted
so acceptable in the _genus irritabile_. The best answer I can
give you is in a clerklike manner to make some observations on two
principal points which seem to point like indices into the midst of
the whole _pro_ and _con_ about genius, and views, and achievements,
and ambition, _et coetera_. 1st. As to the poetical character itself
(I mean that sort, of which, if I am anything, I am a member; that
sort distinguished from the Wordsworthian, or egotistical sublime;
which is a thing _per se_, and stands alone), it is not itself--it has
no self--it is everything and nothing--it has no character--it enjoys
light and shade--it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low,
rich or poor, mean or elevated--it has as much delight in conceiving
an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights
the chameleon poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side
of things, any more than from its taste for the bright one, because
they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of
anything in existence, because he has no identity; he is continually
in for, and filling, some other body. The sun, the moon, the sea, and
men and women, who are creatures of impulse, are poetical, and have
about them an unchangeable attribute; the poet has none, no identity.
He is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's creatures. If, then,
he has no self, and if I am a poet, where is the wonder that I should
say I would write no more? Might I not at that very instant have been
cogitating on the characters of Saturn and Ops? It is a wretched thing
to confess, but it is a very fact, that not one word I ever utter can
be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature.
How can it, when I have no nature? When I am in a room with people,
if I ever am free from speculating on creations of my own brain, then,
not myself goes home to myself, but the identity of every one in the
room begins to press upon me, [so] that I am in a very little time
annihilated--not only among men; it would be the same in a nursery of
children. I know not whether I make myself wholly understood: I hope
enough so to let you see that no dependence is to be placed on what I
said that day.
In the second place, I will speak of my views, and of the life I
purpose to myself. I am ambitious of doing the world some good: if
I should be spared, that may be the work of maturer years--in the
interval I will assay to reach to as high a summit in poetry as the
nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The faint conceptions I have of
poems to come bring the blood frequently into my forehead. All I
hope is, that I may not lose all interest in human affairs--that
the solitary indifference I feel for applause, even from the finest
spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not
think it will. I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning
and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours
should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them.
But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself, but from some
character in whose soul I now live . . .
TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
_Returning advice_
Hampstead, 10 _Aug_. 1820.
MY DEAR SHELLEY,
I am very much gratified that you, in a foreign country, and with a
mind almost over-occupied, should write to me in the strain of the
letter beside me. If I do not take advantage of your invitation,
it will be prevented by a circumstance I have very much at heart to
prophesy. There is no doubt that an English winter would put an end to
me, and do so in a lingering, hateful manner. Therefore, I must either
voyage or journey to Italy, as a soldier marches up to a battery.
My nerves at present are the worst part of me, yet they feel soothed
that, come what extreme may, I shall not be destined to remain in one
spot long enough to take a hatred of any four particular bedposts. I
am glad you take any pleasure in my poor poem, which I would willingly
take the trouble to unwrite, if possible, did I care so much as I
have done about reputation. I received a copy of the _Cenci_, as from
yourself, from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of--the
poetry and dramatic effect, which by many spirits nowadays is
considered the Mammon. A modern work, it is said, must have a purpose,
which may be the God. An artist must serve Mammon; he must have
'self-concentration'--selfishness, perhaps. You, I am sure,
will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your
magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your
subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold
chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six
months together. And is not this extraordinary talk for the writer of
_Endymion_, whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards? I am picked
up and sorted to a pip. My imagination is a monastery, and I am its
monk. I am in expectation of _Prometheus_ every day. Could I have my
own wish effected, you would have it still in manuscript, or be but
now putting an end to the second act. I remember you advising me not
to publish my first blights, on Hampstead Heath. I am returning advice
upon your hands. Most of the poems in the volume I send you have been
written above two years, and would never have been published but for a
hope of gain; so you see I am inclined enough to take your advice now.
I must express once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my
sincere thanks and respects for Mrs. Shelley. In hope of soon seeing
you--
To CHARLES BROWN
_A despairing cry_
Naples, 1 _Nov_. [1820. ]
MY DEAR BROWN,
Yesterday we were let out of quarantine, during which my health
suffered more from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done the
whole voyage. The fresh air revived me a little, and I hope I am well
enough this morning to write to you a short calm letter;--if that can
be called one, in which I am afraid to speak of what I would
fainest dwell upon. As I have gone thus far into it, I must go on
a little;--perhaps it may relieve the load of _wretchedness_ which
presses upon me. The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill
me. My dear Brown, I should have had her when I was in health, and I
should have remained well. I can bear to die--I cannot bear to leave
her. Oh, God! God! God! Everything I have in my trunks that reminds
me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my
travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid
about her--I see her--I hear her. There is nothing in the world of
sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case
when I was in England: I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the
time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes
fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing
her again--Now! --O that I could be buried near where she lives! I
am afraid to write to her--to receive a letter from her--to see her
handwriting would break my heart--even to hear of her anyhow, to see
her name written, would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what
am I to do?
Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any
chance of recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the
whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this
fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you
will do immediately, write to Rome (_poste restante_)--if she is well
and happy, put a mark thus +; if--
Remember me to all. I will endeavour to bear my miseries patiently.
A person in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear.
Write a short note to my sister, saying you have heard from me. Severn
is very well. If I were in better health I would urge your coming to
Rome. I fear there is no one can give me any comfort. Is there any
news of George? O that something fortunate had ever happened to me or
my brothers! --then I might hope,--but despair is forced upon me as a
habit. My dear Brown, for my sake, be her advocate for ever. I
cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in the
thousand novelties around me. I am afraid to write to her. I should
like her to know that I do not forget her. Oh, Brown, I have coals of
fire in my breast. It surprises me that the human heart is capable of
containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end? God
bless her, and her mother, and my sister, and George, and his wife,
and you, and all! . . .
THOMAS HOOD
1799-1845
To CHARLES DICKENS
_American Notes_
17 Elm Tree Road, 12 _Oct_. 1842.
DEAR DICKENS,
Can you let me have an early copy of the _American Notes_ so that I
may review it in the _New Monthly_? Is it really likely to be ready
as advertised? I aim this at Devonshire Place, supposing you to be
returned, for with these winds 'tis no fit time for the coast. But
your bones are not so weather unwise (for ignorance _is_ bliss) as
mine. I should have asked this by word of mouth in Devonshire Place,
but the weather has kept me indoors. It is no fiction that the
complaint, derived from Dutch malaria seven years ago, is revived by
Easterly winds. Otherwise I have been better than usual, and 'never
say die'. Don't forget about the Yankee Notes. I never had but one
American friend, and lost him through _a good crop of pears_. He paid
us a visit in England; whereupon in honour of him, a pear tree, which
had never borne fruit to speak of within memory of man, was loaded
with ninety dozen of brown somethings. Our gardener said they were
a _keeping_ sort, and would be good at Christmas; whereupon, as our
Jonathan was on the eve of sailing for the States, we sent him a few
dozens to dessert him on the voyage. Some he put at the bottom of a
trunk (he wrote to us) to take to America; but he could not have been
gone above a day or two, when all _our_ pears began to rot! _His_
would, of course, by sympathy, and I presume spoilt his linen or
clothes, for I have never heard of him since. Perhaps he thought I had
_done_ him on purpose, and for sartin the tree, my accomplice, never
bore any more pears, good or bad, after that supernatural crop.
Pray present my respects for me to Mrs. Dickens. How she must enjoy
being at home and discovering her children, after her Columbusing, and
only discovering America!
TO THE MANCHESTER ATHENAEUM
_The uses of literature_
(From my bed)
17 Elm Tree Road, St. John's Wood, 18 _July_, 1843.
GENTLEMEN,
If my humble name can be of the least use for your purpose, it is
heartily at your service, with my best wishes for the prosperity of
the Manchester Athenaeum, and my warmest approval of the objects of
that Institution.
I have elsewhere recorded my own deep obligations to Literature--that
a natural turn for reading, and intellectual pursuits, probably
preserved me from the moral shipwreck so apt to befall those who are
deprived in early life of the paternal pilotage. At the very least my
books kept me aloof from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the
saloons, with their degrading orgies. For the closet associate of Pope
and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble, though silent discourse
of Shakespeare and Milton, will hardly seek, or put up with low
company and slang. The reading animal will not be content with the
brutish wallowings that satisfy the unlearned pigs of the world.
Later experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that
literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow; how powerfully
intellectual pursuits can help in keeping the head from crazing, and
the heart from breaking; nay, not to be too grave, how generous mental
food can even atone for a meagre diet; rich fare on the paper, for
short commons on the cloth.
Poisoned by the malaria of the Dutch marshes, my stomach for many
months resolutely set itself against fish, flesh, or fowl; my appetite
had no more edge than the German knife placed before me. But luckily
the mental palate and digestion were still sensible and vigorous; and
whilst I passed untasted every dish at the Rhenish table-d'-hôte,
I could still enjoy my _Peregrine Pickle_, and the feast after the
manner of the Ancients. There was no yearning towards calf's head
_à la tortue_, or sheep's heart; but I could still relish Head _à la
Brunnen_, and the _Heart of Mid-Lothian. _ Still more recently it was
my misfortune, with a tolerable appetite, to be condemned to Lenten
fare, like Sancho Panza, by my physician, to a diet, in fact, lower
than any prescribed by the Poor-Law Commissioners, all animal food,
from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted, as well as
all fluids stronger than that which lays dust, washes pinafores, and
waters polyanthus. But the feast of reason and the flow of soul were
still mine!
Denied beef, I had Bulwer and Cowper; forbidden mutton, there was
Lamb; and in lieu of pork, the great Bacon, or Hogg. Then as to
beverage; it was hard, doubtless, for a Christian to set his face,
like a Turk, against the juice of the grape. But, eschewing wine,
I had still my Butler; and in the absence of liquor, all the Choice
Spirits from Tom Browne to Tom Moore. Thus though confined physically
to the drink that drowns kittens, I quaffed mentally, not merely the
best of our own home-made, but the rich, racy, sparkling growths of
France and Italy, of Germany and Spain; the champagne of Molière, the
Monte Pulciano of Boccaccio, the hock of Schiller, and the sherry of
Cervantes. Depressed bodily by the fluid that damps everything, I got
intellectually elevated with Milton, a little merry with Swift, or
rather jolly with Rabelais, whose Pantagruel, by the way, is equal to
the best gruel with rum in it.
So far can Literature palliate, or compensate, for gastronomical
privations. But there are other evils, great and small, in this world,
which try the stomach less than the head, the heart, and the temper;
bowls that will not roll right, well-laid schemes that will 'gang
aglee', and ill winds that blow with the pertinacity of the monsoon.
Of these Providence has allotted me a full share, but still,
paradoxical as it may sound, my _burthen_ has been greatly lightened
by a _load of books_. The manner of this will be best understood by a
_feline_ illustration. Everybody has heard of the two Kilkenny cats,
who devoured each other; but it is not so generally known, that they
left behind them an orphan kitten, which, true to its breed, began to
eat itself up, till it was diverted from the operation by a mouse. Now
the human mind, under vexation, is like that kitten, for it is apt to
_prey upon itself_, unless drawn off by a new object, and none better
for the purpose than a book. For example, one of Defoe's; for who,
in reading his thrilling _History of the Great Plague_, would not be
reconciled to a few little ones?
Many, many a dreary weary hour have I got over--many a gloomy
misgiving postponed--many a mental and bodily annoyance forgotten by
help of the tragedies, and comedies, of our dramatists and novelists!
Many a trouble has been soothed by the still small voice of the moral
philosopher; many a dragon-like care charmed to sleep by the sweet
song of the poet! For all which I cry incessantly, not aloud, but in
my heart, 'Thanks and honour to the glorious masters of the pen, and
the great inventors of the press! ' Such has been my own experience of
the blessing and comfort of literature and intellectual pursuits;
and of the same mind, doubtless, was Sir Humphry Davy, who went for
_Consolations in Travel_, not to the inn, or the posting-house, but to
his library and his books.
To DR. MOIR
_A humourist to the last_
[1845. ]
DEAR MOIR,
God bless you and yours, and good-bye! I drop these few lines, as in a
bottle from a ship water-logged, and on the brink of foundering, being
in the last stage of dropsical debility; but though suffering in body,
serene in mind. So without reversing my union-jack, I await my last
lurch. Till which, believe me, dear Moir,
Yours most truly.
To SIR ROBERT PEEL
_A farewell letter_
Devonshire Lodge, New Finchley Road, [1845].
DEAR SIR,
We are not to meet in the flesh. Given over by my physicians and by
myself, I am only kept alive by frequent instalments of mulled port
wine. In this extremity I feel a comfort, for which I cannot refrain
from again thanking you, with all the sincerity of a dying man,--and,
at the same time, bidding you a respectful farewell.
Thank God my mind is composed and my reason undisturbed, but my race
as an author is run. My physical debility finds no tonic virtue in
a steel pen, otherwise I would have written one more paper--a
forewarning one--against an evil, or the danger of it, arising from
a literary movement in which I have had some share, a one-sided
humanity, opposite to that Catholic Shakespearian sympathy, which
felt with King as well as Peasant, and duly estimated the mortal
temptations of both stations. Certain classes at the poles of Society
are already too far asunder; it should be the duty of our writers to
draw them nearer by kindly attraction, not to aggravate the existing
repulsion, and place a wider moral gulf between Rich and Poor, with
Hate on the one side and Fear on the other. But I am too weak for this
task, the last I had set myself; it is death that stops my pen, you
see, and not the pension.
God bless you, Sir, and prosper all your measures for the benefit of
my beloved country.
ROBERT BROWNING
1812-1889
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
1806-1861
To LEIGH HUNT
_A joint epistle_
Bagni di Lucca, 6 _Oct_. 1857.
DEAR LEIGH HUNT,
(It is hard to write, but you bade me do so; yet I had better say
'Master Hunt', as they used to call Webster or Ford. ) A nine months'
silence after such a letter as yours seems too strange even to you
perhaps. So understand that you gave us more delight at once than we
could bear, that was the beginning of the waiting to recover spirit
and try and do one's feeling a little less injustice. But soon
followed unexpected sorrows to us and to you, and the expression of
even gratitude grew hard again. Certainly all this while your letter
has been laid before our very eyes, and we have waited for a brighter
day than ever came till we left Florence two months ago and more, then
we brought it to 'answer' among the chestnut trees; but immediately
on our arrival a friend was attacked by fever, and we were kept in
anxiety about him for six weeks. At last he recovered sufficiently to
leave for Florence, and (just think) our little boy became ill,
for the first time in his life, and gave us solicitude enough for a
fortnight: it is nothing now that it is over; he is going about now
almost as well as before, and we go away to-morrow, as I said. But I
will try and get one, at least, of the joys I came to find here, and
really write to you from this place, as I meant to do. '_I_'--you
know it is my wife that I write for, though you entangle and distract
either of us by the reverberations (so to speak) of pleasures over and
above the pleasure you give us. I intend to say, that you praise that
poem, and mix it up with praise of her very self, and then give it to
me directly, and then give it to _her_ with the pride you have just
given me, and then it somehow comes back to me increased so far, till
the effect is just as you probably intended. I wish my wife may know
you more: I wish you may see and know her more, but you cannot live
by her eleven years, as I have done--or yes, what cannot you do, being
the man, the poet you are? This last word, I dare think, I have a
right to say; I _have_ always venerated you as a poet; I believe your
poetry to be sure of its eventual reward; other people, not unlikely,
may feel like me, that there has been no need of getting into feverish
haste to cry out on what is; yet you, who wrote it, can leave it and
look at other poetry, and speak so of it: how well of you!
I am still too near the production of _Aurora Leigh_ to be quite able
to see it all; my wife used to write it, and lay it down to hear our
child spell, or when a visitor came,--it was thrust under the cushion
then. At Paris, a year ago last March, she gave me the first six books
to read, I having never seen a line before. She then wrote the rest,
and transcribed them in London, where I read them also. I wish, in
one sense, that I had written and she had read it. . . . I shall commend
myself to you by telling you this. Indeed, the proper acknowledgement
of your letter seems to be that one should do something, not say
something. If you were here, I might quite naturally begin repeating
_Giaffar_ or _Solomon_, and the rest. You would see whether I was not
capable of getting all the good out of your praise.
While I write, there is a strange thing that happened last night
impossible to get out of my thoughts. It may give you pain to tell you
of it, yet if with the pain come triumphant memories and hopes, as I
expect there will, you may choose the pain with them. What decides me
to tell it is that I heard you years ago allude to the destruction of
a volume of _Lamia, Isabella, &c. , to be restored to you yet_--now you
remember; also, I think, of your putting my name near Shelley's in the
end of your letter, where you say 'since I lost Shelley'. Is it not
strange that I should have transcribed for the first time, last night,
the _Indian Serenade_ that, together with some verses of Metastasio,
accompanied that book? That I should have been reserved to tell
the present possessor of them--to whom they were given by Captain
Roberts--_what_ the poem _was, and that it had been published_! It is
preserved religiously; but the characters are all but illegible, and
I needed a good magnifying-glass to be quite sure of such of them as
remain. The end is that I have rescued three or four variations in the
reading of that divine little poem, as one reads it, at least, in the
_Posthumous Poems_. It is headed the _Indian_ _Serenade_ (not _Lines
to an Indian Air_). In the first stanza the seventh line is 'Hath led
me'; in the second, the third line is 'And the champak's odours fail';
and the eighth, 'O! Beloved as thou art! ' In the last stanza, the
seventh line was, 'Oh, press it to thine own again. ' Are not all these
better readings? (even to the 'Hath' for 'Has'. ) There, I give them
you as you gave us Milton's hair. If I have mistaken in telling you,
you will understand and forgive.
I think I will ask my wife to say a word or two so I shall be sure
that you forgive. Now let my wife say the remainder. All I have
wished to do--know how little likely it was that I should succeed in
that--was to assure you of my pride and affectionate gratitude. --God
bless you ever,
R. B.
Dear friend, I will say; for I feel it must be something as good as
friendship that can forgive and understand this silence, so much like
the veriest human kind of ingratitude. When I look back and think--all
this time after that letter, and not a sign made--I wonder. Yet,
if you knew! First of all, we were silent because we waited for
information which you seemed to desire. . . . Then there were sadder
reasons. Poor _Aurora_, that you were so more than kind to (oh, how
can I think of it? ), has been steeped in tears, and some of them of a
very bitter sort. Your letter was addressed to my husband, you knowing
by your delicate true instinct where your praise would give most
pleasure; but I believe Robert had not the heart to write when I felt
that I should not have the spirits to add a word in the proper key.
When we came here from Florence a few months ago to get repose and
cheerfulness from the sight of the mountains, we said to ourselves
that we would speak to you at ease--instead of which the word was
taken from our own mouth, and we have done little but sit by sick beds
and meditate on gastric fevers. So disturbed we have been--so sad! our
darling precious child the last victim. To see him lying still on his
golden curls, with cheeks too scarlet to suit the poor patient eyes,
looking so frightfully like an angel! It was very hard. But this is
over, I do thank God, and we are on the point of carrying back our
treasure with us to Florence to-morrow, quite recovered, if a little
thinner and weaker, and the young voice as merry as ever. You are
aware that that child I am more proud of than twenty _Auroras_, even
after Leigh Hunt has praised them. He is eight years old, has never
been '_crammed_', but reads English, Italian, French, German, and
plays the piano--then, is the sweetest child! sweeter than he looks.
When he was ill, he said to me, 'You pet! don't be unhappy about
_me_. Think it's a boy in the street, and be a little sorry, but not
unhappy. ' Who could not be unhappy, I wonder?
I never saw your book called the _Religion of the Heart. _ It's the
only book of yours I never saw, and I mean to wipe out that reproach
on the soonest day possible. I receive more dogmas, perhaps (my
'perhaps' being in the dark rather), than you do. I believe in the
divinity of Jesus Christ in the intensest sense--that he was God
absolutely. But for the rest, I am very unorthodox--about the spirit,
the flesh, and the devil, and if you would not let me sit by you, a
great many churchmen wouldn't; in fact, churches do all of them, as at
present constituted, seem too narrow and low to hold true Christianity
in its proximate developments. I, at least, cannot help believing them
so.
My dear friend, can we dare, after our sins against you--can we dare
_wish_ for a letter from you sometimes? Ask, we dare not. May God
bless you. Even if you had not praised me and made me so grateful,
I should be grateful to you for three things--for your poetry (that
first), then for Milton's hair, and then for the memory I have of
our visit to you, when you sat in that chair and spoke so mildly and
deeply at once.
Let me be ever affectionately yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
1816-1855
TO A FRIEND
_Trials of a governess_
_July_ 1839.
I cannot procure ink, without going into the drawing-room, where I do
not wish to go. . . . I should have written to you long since, and told
you every detail of the utterly new scene into which I have lately
been cast, had I not been daily expecting a letter from yourself, and
wondering and lamenting that you did not write; for you will remember
it was your turn. I must not bother you too much with my sorrows, of
which, I fear, you have heard an exaggerated account. If you were near
me, perhaps I might be tempted to tell you all, to grow egotistical,
and pour out the long history of a private governess's trials and
crosses in her first situation. As it is, I will only ask you to
imagine the miseries of a reserved wretch like me, thrown at once into
the midst of a large family--proud as peacocks and wealthy as Jews--at
a time when they were particularly gay--when the house was filled with
company--all strangers--people whose faces I had never seen before.
In this state I had charge given me of a set of pampered, spoilt,
turbulent children, whom I was expected constantly to amuse, as well
as to instruct. I soon found that the constant demand on my stock
of animal spirits reduced them to the lowest state of exhaustion; at
times I felt--and, I suppose, seemed--depressed. To my astonishment,
I was taken to task on the subject by Mrs. ----, with a sternness of
manner and a harshness of language scarcely credible; like a fool, I
cried most bitterly. I could not help it; my spirits quite failed me
at first. I thought I had done my best--strained every nerve to please
her; and to be treated in that way, merely because I was shy and
sometimes melancholy, was too bad. At first I was for giving all up
and going home. But, after a little reflection, I determined to summon
what energy I had, and to weather the storm. I said to myself, 'I have
never yet quitted a place without gaining a friend; adversity is
a good school; the poor are born to labour, and the dependent to
endure. ' I resolved to be patient, to command my feelings, and to take
what came; the ordeal, I reflected, would not last many weeks, and I
trusted it would do me good. I recollected the fable of the willow and
the oak; I bent quietly, and now, I trust, the storm is blowing over
me. Mrs. ---- is generally considered an agreeable woman; so she is, I
doubt not, in general society. Her health is sound, her animal spirits
good, consequently she is cheerful in company; but oh! does this
compensate for the absence of every fine feeling--of every gentle and
delicate sentiment? She behaves somewhat more civilly to me now than
she did at first, and the children are a little more manageable; but
she does not know my character, and she does not wish to know it.
I have never had five minutes' conversation with her since I came,
except while she was scolding me. I have no wish to be pitied, except
by yourself; if I were talking to you I could tell you much more.
To WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
_Thanks for advice_
[1840. ]
. . . Authors are generally very tenacious of their productions, but I
am not so much attached to this but that I can give it up without
much distress. No doubt, if I had gone on, I should have made quite
a Richardsonian concern of it. .
DEAR SIR,
The droll remarks of the _Quarterly_, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived
as safe as such poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do.
I am on the point of sending to you 250 copies of a work which I have
printed in Italy; which you will have to pay four or five pounds duty
upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you the _kind of thing_ it is,
and in the course of the winter I shall send directions for its
publication, _until the arrival of which directions, I request that
you would have the kindness not_ to open the box, _or, if by necessity
it is opened, to abstain from observing yourself or permitting others
to observe, what it contains_. I trust this confidently to you, it
being of consequence. Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no
reference, direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, or personal
satire, and that this precaution is merely literary.
The _Prometheus_, a poem in my best style, whatever that may amount
to, will arrive with it, but in MS. , which you can print and publish
in the season. It is the most perfect of my productions.
Southey wrote the article in question, I am well aware. Observe the
impudence of the man in speaking of himself. The only remark worth
notice in this piece is the assertion that I imitate Wordsworth.
It may as well be said that Lord Byron imitates Wordsworth, or that
Wordsworth imitates Lord Byron, both being great poets, and deriving
from the new springs of thought and feeling, which the great events
of our age have exposed to view, a similar tone of sentiment, imagery,
and expression. A certain similarity all the best writers of any
particular age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of that age
acting on all. This I had explained in my _Preface_, which the
writer was too disingenuous to advert to. As to the other trash, and
particularly that lame attack on my personal character, which was
meant so ill, and which I am not the man to feel, 'tis all nothing. I
am glad, with respect to that part of it which alludes to Hunt, that
it should so have happened that I dedicate, as you will see, a work
which has all the capacities for being popular to that excellent
person. I was amused, too, with the finale; it is like the end of the
first act of an opera, when that tremendous concordant discord sets
up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It
describes the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God; his
pulling me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh; my
calling out like the devil who was _game_ to the last; swearing and
cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postilion on
Mount Cenis; entreating everybody to drown themselves; pretending not
to be drowned myself when I _am_ drowned; and lastly, _being_ drowned.
You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on Hunt, and
ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship, and the name of the
captain, and whether he has any bill of lading, which, if he has, you
would oblige me by sending, together with the rest of the information,
by return of post, addressed to the Post Office, Florence.
To MRS. HUNT
_Keats and some others_
[Pisa] 11 _Nov_. 1820.
MY BEST MARIANNE,
I am delighted to hear that you complain of me for not writing to you,
although I have much more reason to complain of you for not writing to
me. At least it promises me a letter from you, and you know with what
pleasure we receive, and with what anxiety we expect intelligence from
you--almost the only friends who now remain to us.
I am afraid that the strict system of expense to which you are limited
annoys you all very much, and that Hunt's health suffers both from
that and from the incredible exertions which I see by the _Indicators_
and the _Examiners_ that he is making. Would to Heaven that I had the
power of doing you some good! but when you are sure that the wish is
sincere, the bare expression of it may help to cheer you.
The Gisbornes are arrived, and have brought news of you, and some
books, the principal part of which, however, are yet to arrive by
sea. Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called
_Hyperion_ promises for him that he is destined to become one of the
first writers of the age. His other things are imperfect enough, and,
what is worse, written in the bad sort of style which is becoming
fashionable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and
Wordsworth. But of all these things nothing is worse than ----, in
spite of Hunt's extracting the only good stanzas, with his usual good
nature. Indeed, _I_ ought not to complain of Hunt's good nature, for
no one owes so much to it. Is not the vulgarity of these wretched
imitations of Lord Byron carried to a pitch of the sublime? His
indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and against human
nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only affects the
libertine: he is, really, a very amiable, friendly, and agreeable
man, I hear. But is not this monstrous? In Lord Byron all this has
an analogy with the general system of his character, and the wit and
poetry which surround hide with their light the darkness of the thing
itself. They contradict it even; they prove that the strength and
beauty of human nature can survive and conquer all that appears most
inconsistent with it. But for a writer to be at once filthy and dull
is a crime against gods, men, and columns. For Heaven's sake do not
show this to any one but Hunt, for it would irritate the wasp's nest
of the irritable race of poets.
Where is Keats now? I am anxiously expecting him in Italy, when I
shall take care to bestow every possible attention on him. I consider
his a most valuable life, and I am deeply interested in his safety. I
intend to be the physician both of his body and his soul, to keep
the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and Spanish. I am aware,
indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me;
and this is an additional motive, and will be an added pleasure.
We are at this moment removing from the Bagni to Pisa, for the Serchio
has broken its banks, and all the country about is under water. An old
friend and fellow-townsman of mine, Captain Medwin, is on a visit to
us at present, and we anxiously expect Keats, to whom I would write if
I knew where to address.
Adieu, my dear Marianne. Write soon; kiss all the babes for me, and
tell me news of them, and give my love to Bessy and Hunt.
To LEIGH HUNT
_A literary collaboration_
Pisa, 26 _Aug. _ 1821.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,
Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at
Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination, on his part, to
come and live at Pisa; and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung'
Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message
which he desires me to give you, and which, I think, ought to add
to your determination--for such a one I hope you have formed--of
restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these
'regions mild of calm and serene air'.
He proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me,
in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the
contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and
share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was
never brought to bear. There can be no doubt that the _profits_ of
any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various,
yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As for myself, I am for the
present only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know
each other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to entrust you with
a secret which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord Byron) nothing
would induce me to share in the profits, and still less, in the
borrowed splendour of such a partnership. You and he, in different
manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different manner, but
in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success. Do not
let my frankness with you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than
Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station
in modern literature which the universal voice of my contemporaries
forbids me either to stoop or to aspire to. I am, and I desire to be,
nothing.
I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your
journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would
never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the word; and I
am as jealous for my friend as for myself. But I suppose that I shall
at last make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the
many obligations he has conferred on me. I know I need only ask.
I think I have never told you how very much I like your _Amyntas_; it
almost reconciles me to translations. In another sense I still demur.
You might have written another such a poem as the _Nymphs_, with no
access of efforts. I am full of thoughts and plans, and should do
something, if the feeble and irritable frame which incloses it was
willing to obey the spirit. I fancy that then I should do great
things. Before this you will have seen _Adonais_. Lord Byron, I
suppose from modesty, on account of his being mentioned in it, did
not say a word of _Adonais_, though he was loud in his praise of
_Prometheus_, and, what you will not agree with him in, censure of
the _Cenci_. Certainly, if _Marino Faliero_ is a drama, the _Cenci_
is not--but that between ourselves. Lord Byron is reformed, as far
as gallantry goes, and lives with a beautiful and sentimental Italian
lady, who is as much attached to him as may be. I trust greatly to his
intercourse with you, for his creed to become as pure as he thinks his
conduct is. He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker
of aristocracy wants to be cut out.
JOHN KEATS
1795-1821
To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS
_Burns's cottage_
Maybole, 11 _July_ [1818].
MY DEAR REYNOLDS,
. . . I am approaching Burns's cottage very fast. We have made continual
inquiries from the time we saw his tomb at Dumfries. His name, of
course, is known all about: his great reputation among the plodding
people is, 'that he wrote a good _mony_ sensible things'. One of the
pleasantest means of annulling self is approaching such a shrine as
the Cottage of Burns: we need not think of his misery--that is all
gone, bad luck to it! I shall look upon it hereafter with unmixed
pleasure, as I do my Stratford-on-Avon day with Bailey. I shall fill
this sheet for you in the Bardie's country, going no further than
this, till I get to the town of Ayr, which will be a nine miles' walk
to tea.
We were talking on different and indifferent things, when, on a
sudden, we turned a corner upon the immediate country of Ayr. The
sight was as rich as possible. I had no conception that the native
place of Burns was so beautiful; the idea I had was more desolate: his
'_Rigs of Barley_' seemed always to me but a few strips of green on a
cold hill--Oh, prejudice! --It was as rich as Devon. I endeavoured
to drink in the prospect, that I might spin it out to you, as the
silkworm makes silk from mulberry leaves. I cannot recollect it.
Besides all the beauty, there were the mountains of Arran Isle, black
and huge over the sea. We came down upon everything suddenly; there
were in our way the 'bonny Doon', with the brig that Tam o' Shanter
crossed, Kirk Alloway, Burns's Cottage, and then the Brigs of Ayr.
First we stood upon the Bridge across the Doon, surrounded by every
phantasy of green in tree, meadow, and hill: the stream of the Doon,
as a farmer told us, is covered with trees 'from head to foot'.
You know those beautiful heaths, so fresh against the weather of a
summer's evening; there was one stretching along behind the trees.
I wish I knew always the humour my friends would be in at opening
a letter of mine, to suit it to them as nearly as possible. I could
always find an egg-shell for melancholy, and, as for merriment, a
witty humour will turn anything to account. My head is sometimes in
such a whirl in considering the million likings and antipathies of our
moments, that I can get into no settled strain in my letters. My wig!
Burns and sentimentality coming across you and Frank Floodgate in the
office. Oh, Scenery, that thou shouldst be crushed between two puns!
As for them, I venture the rascalliest in the Scotch region. I hope
Brown does not put them in his journal: if he does, I must sit on the
cutty-stool all next winter. We went to Kirk Alloway. 'A prophet is
no prophet in his own country. ' We went to the Cottage and took some
whisky. I wrote a sonnet for the mere sake of writing some lines under
the roof: they are so bad I cannot transcribe them. The man at the
cottage was a great bore with his anecdotes. I hate the rascal. His
life consists in fuzy, fuzzy, fuzziest. He drinks glasses, five for
the quarter, and twelve for the hour; he is a mahogany-faced old
jackass who knew Burns: he ought to have been kicked for having spoken
to him. He calls himself 'a curious old bitch', but he is a flat
old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the
flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give
a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in
jest--this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog
made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about
scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable
reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes
from Homer only to see close before you the real Isle of Tenedos. You
would rather read Homer afterwards than remember yourself. One song
of Burns's is of more worth to you than all I could think for a whole
year in his native country. His misery is a dead weight upon the
nimbleness of one's quill; I tried to forget it--to drink toddy
without any care--to write a merry sonnet--it won't do--he talked, he
drank with blackguards; he was miserable. We can see horribly clear,
in the works of such a man, his whole life, as if we were God's
spies. . . .
TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE
_The poetic character_
Hampstead, 27 _Oct_. 1818.
MY DEAR WOODHOUSE,
Your letter gave me great satisfaction, more on account of its
friendliness than any relish of that matter in it which is accounted
so acceptable in the _genus irritabile_. The best answer I can
give you is in a clerklike manner to make some observations on two
principal points which seem to point like indices into the midst of
the whole _pro_ and _con_ about genius, and views, and achievements,
and ambition, _et coetera_. 1st. As to the poetical character itself
(I mean that sort, of which, if I am anything, I am a member; that
sort distinguished from the Wordsworthian, or egotistical sublime;
which is a thing _per se_, and stands alone), it is not itself--it has
no self--it is everything and nothing--it has no character--it enjoys
light and shade--it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low,
rich or poor, mean or elevated--it has as much delight in conceiving
an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights
the chameleon poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side
of things, any more than from its taste for the bright one, because
they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of
anything in existence, because he has no identity; he is continually
in for, and filling, some other body. The sun, the moon, the sea, and
men and women, who are creatures of impulse, are poetical, and have
about them an unchangeable attribute; the poet has none, no identity.
He is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's creatures. If, then,
he has no self, and if I am a poet, where is the wonder that I should
say I would write no more? Might I not at that very instant have been
cogitating on the characters of Saturn and Ops? It is a wretched thing
to confess, but it is a very fact, that not one word I ever utter can
be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature.
How can it, when I have no nature? When I am in a room with people,
if I ever am free from speculating on creations of my own brain, then,
not myself goes home to myself, but the identity of every one in the
room begins to press upon me, [so] that I am in a very little time
annihilated--not only among men; it would be the same in a nursery of
children. I know not whether I make myself wholly understood: I hope
enough so to let you see that no dependence is to be placed on what I
said that day.
In the second place, I will speak of my views, and of the life I
purpose to myself. I am ambitious of doing the world some good: if
I should be spared, that may be the work of maturer years--in the
interval I will assay to reach to as high a summit in poetry as the
nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The faint conceptions I have of
poems to come bring the blood frequently into my forehead. All I
hope is, that I may not lose all interest in human affairs--that
the solitary indifference I feel for applause, even from the finest
spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not
think it will. I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning
and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours
should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them.
But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself, but from some
character in whose soul I now live . . .
TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
_Returning advice_
Hampstead, 10 _Aug_. 1820.
MY DEAR SHELLEY,
I am very much gratified that you, in a foreign country, and with a
mind almost over-occupied, should write to me in the strain of the
letter beside me. If I do not take advantage of your invitation,
it will be prevented by a circumstance I have very much at heart to
prophesy. There is no doubt that an English winter would put an end to
me, and do so in a lingering, hateful manner. Therefore, I must either
voyage or journey to Italy, as a soldier marches up to a battery.
My nerves at present are the worst part of me, yet they feel soothed
that, come what extreme may, I shall not be destined to remain in one
spot long enough to take a hatred of any four particular bedposts. I
am glad you take any pleasure in my poor poem, which I would willingly
take the trouble to unwrite, if possible, did I care so much as I
have done about reputation. I received a copy of the _Cenci_, as from
yourself, from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of--the
poetry and dramatic effect, which by many spirits nowadays is
considered the Mammon. A modern work, it is said, must have a purpose,
which may be the God. An artist must serve Mammon; he must have
'self-concentration'--selfishness, perhaps. You, I am sure,
will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your
magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your
subject with ore. The thought of such discipline must fall like cold
chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six
months together. And is not this extraordinary talk for the writer of
_Endymion_, whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards? I am picked
up and sorted to a pip. My imagination is a monastery, and I am its
monk. I am in expectation of _Prometheus_ every day. Could I have my
own wish effected, you would have it still in manuscript, or be but
now putting an end to the second act. I remember you advising me not
to publish my first blights, on Hampstead Heath. I am returning advice
upon your hands. Most of the poems in the volume I send you have been
written above two years, and would never have been published but for a
hope of gain; so you see I am inclined enough to take your advice now.
I must express once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my
sincere thanks and respects for Mrs. Shelley. In hope of soon seeing
you--
To CHARLES BROWN
_A despairing cry_
Naples, 1 _Nov_. [1820. ]
MY DEAR BROWN,
Yesterday we were let out of quarantine, during which my health
suffered more from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done the
whole voyage. The fresh air revived me a little, and I hope I am well
enough this morning to write to you a short calm letter;--if that can
be called one, in which I am afraid to speak of what I would
fainest dwell upon. As I have gone thus far into it, I must go on
a little;--perhaps it may relieve the load of _wretchedness_ which
presses upon me. The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill
me. My dear Brown, I should have had her when I was in health, and I
should have remained well. I can bear to die--I cannot bear to leave
her. Oh, God! God! God! Everything I have in my trunks that reminds
me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my
travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid
about her--I see her--I hear her. There is nothing in the world of
sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case
when I was in England: I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the
time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes
fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing
her again--Now! --O that I could be buried near where she lives! I
am afraid to write to her--to receive a letter from her--to see her
handwriting would break my heart--even to hear of her anyhow, to see
her name written, would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what
am I to do?
Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any
chance of recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the
whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this
fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you
will do immediately, write to Rome (_poste restante_)--if she is well
and happy, put a mark thus +; if--
Remember me to all. I will endeavour to bear my miseries patiently.
A person in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear.
Write a short note to my sister, saying you have heard from me. Severn
is very well. If I were in better health I would urge your coming to
Rome. I fear there is no one can give me any comfort. Is there any
news of George? O that something fortunate had ever happened to me or
my brothers! --then I might hope,--but despair is forced upon me as a
habit. My dear Brown, for my sake, be her advocate for ever. I
cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in the
thousand novelties around me. I am afraid to write to her. I should
like her to know that I do not forget her. Oh, Brown, I have coals of
fire in my breast. It surprises me that the human heart is capable of
containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end? God
bless her, and her mother, and my sister, and George, and his wife,
and you, and all! . . .
THOMAS HOOD
1799-1845
To CHARLES DICKENS
_American Notes_
17 Elm Tree Road, 12 _Oct_. 1842.
DEAR DICKENS,
Can you let me have an early copy of the _American Notes_ so that I
may review it in the _New Monthly_? Is it really likely to be ready
as advertised? I aim this at Devonshire Place, supposing you to be
returned, for with these winds 'tis no fit time for the coast. But
your bones are not so weather unwise (for ignorance _is_ bliss) as
mine. I should have asked this by word of mouth in Devonshire Place,
but the weather has kept me indoors. It is no fiction that the
complaint, derived from Dutch malaria seven years ago, is revived by
Easterly winds. Otherwise I have been better than usual, and 'never
say die'. Don't forget about the Yankee Notes. I never had but one
American friend, and lost him through _a good crop of pears_. He paid
us a visit in England; whereupon in honour of him, a pear tree, which
had never borne fruit to speak of within memory of man, was loaded
with ninety dozen of brown somethings. Our gardener said they were
a _keeping_ sort, and would be good at Christmas; whereupon, as our
Jonathan was on the eve of sailing for the States, we sent him a few
dozens to dessert him on the voyage. Some he put at the bottom of a
trunk (he wrote to us) to take to America; but he could not have been
gone above a day or two, when all _our_ pears began to rot! _His_
would, of course, by sympathy, and I presume spoilt his linen or
clothes, for I have never heard of him since. Perhaps he thought I had
_done_ him on purpose, and for sartin the tree, my accomplice, never
bore any more pears, good or bad, after that supernatural crop.
Pray present my respects for me to Mrs. Dickens. How she must enjoy
being at home and discovering her children, after her Columbusing, and
only discovering America!
TO THE MANCHESTER ATHENAEUM
_The uses of literature_
(From my bed)
17 Elm Tree Road, St. John's Wood, 18 _July_, 1843.
GENTLEMEN,
If my humble name can be of the least use for your purpose, it is
heartily at your service, with my best wishes for the prosperity of
the Manchester Athenaeum, and my warmest approval of the objects of
that Institution.
I have elsewhere recorded my own deep obligations to Literature--that
a natural turn for reading, and intellectual pursuits, probably
preserved me from the moral shipwreck so apt to befall those who are
deprived in early life of the paternal pilotage. At the very least my
books kept me aloof from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the
saloons, with their degrading orgies. For the closet associate of Pope
and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble, though silent discourse
of Shakespeare and Milton, will hardly seek, or put up with low
company and slang. The reading animal will not be content with the
brutish wallowings that satisfy the unlearned pigs of the world.
Later experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that
literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow; how powerfully
intellectual pursuits can help in keeping the head from crazing, and
the heart from breaking; nay, not to be too grave, how generous mental
food can even atone for a meagre diet; rich fare on the paper, for
short commons on the cloth.
Poisoned by the malaria of the Dutch marshes, my stomach for many
months resolutely set itself against fish, flesh, or fowl; my appetite
had no more edge than the German knife placed before me. But luckily
the mental palate and digestion were still sensible and vigorous; and
whilst I passed untasted every dish at the Rhenish table-d'-hôte,
I could still enjoy my _Peregrine Pickle_, and the feast after the
manner of the Ancients. There was no yearning towards calf's head
_à la tortue_, or sheep's heart; but I could still relish Head _à la
Brunnen_, and the _Heart of Mid-Lothian. _ Still more recently it was
my misfortune, with a tolerable appetite, to be condemned to Lenten
fare, like Sancho Panza, by my physician, to a diet, in fact, lower
than any prescribed by the Poor-Law Commissioners, all animal food,
from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted, as well as
all fluids stronger than that which lays dust, washes pinafores, and
waters polyanthus. But the feast of reason and the flow of soul were
still mine!
Denied beef, I had Bulwer and Cowper; forbidden mutton, there was
Lamb; and in lieu of pork, the great Bacon, or Hogg. Then as to
beverage; it was hard, doubtless, for a Christian to set his face,
like a Turk, against the juice of the grape. But, eschewing wine,
I had still my Butler; and in the absence of liquor, all the Choice
Spirits from Tom Browne to Tom Moore. Thus though confined physically
to the drink that drowns kittens, I quaffed mentally, not merely the
best of our own home-made, but the rich, racy, sparkling growths of
France and Italy, of Germany and Spain; the champagne of Molière, the
Monte Pulciano of Boccaccio, the hock of Schiller, and the sherry of
Cervantes. Depressed bodily by the fluid that damps everything, I got
intellectually elevated with Milton, a little merry with Swift, or
rather jolly with Rabelais, whose Pantagruel, by the way, is equal to
the best gruel with rum in it.
So far can Literature palliate, or compensate, for gastronomical
privations. But there are other evils, great and small, in this world,
which try the stomach less than the head, the heart, and the temper;
bowls that will not roll right, well-laid schemes that will 'gang
aglee', and ill winds that blow with the pertinacity of the monsoon.
Of these Providence has allotted me a full share, but still,
paradoxical as it may sound, my _burthen_ has been greatly lightened
by a _load of books_. The manner of this will be best understood by a
_feline_ illustration. Everybody has heard of the two Kilkenny cats,
who devoured each other; but it is not so generally known, that they
left behind them an orphan kitten, which, true to its breed, began to
eat itself up, till it was diverted from the operation by a mouse. Now
the human mind, under vexation, is like that kitten, for it is apt to
_prey upon itself_, unless drawn off by a new object, and none better
for the purpose than a book. For example, one of Defoe's; for who,
in reading his thrilling _History of the Great Plague_, would not be
reconciled to a few little ones?
Many, many a dreary weary hour have I got over--many a gloomy
misgiving postponed--many a mental and bodily annoyance forgotten by
help of the tragedies, and comedies, of our dramatists and novelists!
Many a trouble has been soothed by the still small voice of the moral
philosopher; many a dragon-like care charmed to sleep by the sweet
song of the poet! For all which I cry incessantly, not aloud, but in
my heart, 'Thanks and honour to the glorious masters of the pen, and
the great inventors of the press! ' Such has been my own experience of
the blessing and comfort of literature and intellectual pursuits;
and of the same mind, doubtless, was Sir Humphry Davy, who went for
_Consolations in Travel_, not to the inn, or the posting-house, but to
his library and his books.
To DR. MOIR
_A humourist to the last_
[1845. ]
DEAR MOIR,
God bless you and yours, and good-bye! I drop these few lines, as in a
bottle from a ship water-logged, and on the brink of foundering, being
in the last stage of dropsical debility; but though suffering in body,
serene in mind. So without reversing my union-jack, I await my last
lurch. Till which, believe me, dear Moir,
Yours most truly.
To SIR ROBERT PEEL
_A farewell letter_
Devonshire Lodge, New Finchley Road, [1845].
DEAR SIR,
We are not to meet in the flesh. Given over by my physicians and by
myself, I am only kept alive by frequent instalments of mulled port
wine. In this extremity I feel a comfort, for which I cannot refrain
from again thanking you, with all the sincerity of a dying man,--and,
at the same time, bidding you a respectful farewell.
Thank God my mind is composed and my reason undisturbed, but my race
as an author is run. My physical debility finds no tonic virtue in
a steel pen, otherwise I would have written one more paper--a
forewarning one--against an evil, or the danger of it, arising from
a literary movement in which I have had some share, a one-sided
humanity, opposite to that Catholic Shakespearian sympathy, which
felt with King as well as Peasant, and duly estimated the mortal
temptations of both stations. Certain classes at the poles of Society
are already too far asunder; it should be the duty of our writers to
draw them nearer by kindly attraction, not to aggravate the existing
repulsion, and place a wider moral gulf between Rich and Poor, with
Hate on the one side and Fear on the other. But I am too weak for this
task, the last I had set myself; it is death that stops my pen, you
see, and not the pension.
God bless you, Sir, and prosper all your measures for the benefit of
my beloved country.
ROBERT BROWNING
1812-1889
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
1806-1861
To LEIGH HUNT
_A joint epistle_
Bagni di Lucca, 6 _Oct_. 1857.
DEAR LEIGH HUNT,
(It is hard to write, but you bade me do so; yet I had better say
'Master Hunt', as they used to call Webster or Ford. ) A nine months'
silence after such a letter as yours seems too strange even to you
perhaps. So understand that you gave us more delight at once than we
could bear, that was the beginning of the waiting to recover spirit
and try and do one's feeling a little less injustice. But soon
followed unexpected sorrows to us and to you, and the expression of
even gratitude grew hard again. Certainly all this while your letter
has been laid before our very eyes, and we have waited for a brighter
day than ever came till we left Florence two months ago and more, then
we brought it to 'answer' among the chestnut trees; but immediately
on our arrival a friend was attacked by fever, and we were kept in
anxiety about him for six weeks. At last he recovered sufficiently to
leave for Florence, and (just think) our little boy became ill,
for the first time in his life, and gave us solicitude enough for a
fortnight: it is nothing now that it is over; he is going about now
almost as well as before, and we go away to-morrow, as I said. But I
will try and get one, at least, of the joys I came to find here, and
really write to you from this place, as I meant to do. '_I_'--you
know it is my wife that I write for, though you entangle and distract
either of us by the reverberations (so to speak) of pleasures over and
above the pleasure you give us. I intend to say, that you praise that
poem, and mix it up with praise of her very self, and then give it to
me directly, and then give it to _her_ with the pride you have just
given me, and then it somehow comes back to me increased so far, till
the effect is just as you probably intended. I wish my wife may know
you more: I wish you may see and know her more, but you cannot live
by her eleven years, as I have done--or yes, what cannot you do, being
the man, the poet you are? This last word, I dare think, I have a
right to say; I _have_ always venerated you as a poet; I believe your
poetry to be sure of its eventual reward; other people, not unlikely,
may feel like me, that there has been no need of getting into feverish
haste to cry out on what is; yet you, who wrote it, can leave it and
look at other poetry, and speak so of it: how well of you!
I am still too near the production of _Aurora Leigh_ to be quite able
to see it all; my wife used to write it, and lay it down to hear our
child spell, or when a visitor came,--it was thrust under the cushion
then. At Paris, a year ago last March, she gave me the first six books
to read, I having never seen a line before. She then wrote the rest,
and transcribed them in London, where I read them also. I wish, in
one sense, that I had written and she had read it. . . . I shall commend
myself to you by telling you this. Indeed, the proper acknowledgement
of your letter seems to be that one should do something, not say
something. If you were here, I might quite naturally begin repeating
_Giaffar_ or _Solomon_, and the rest. You would see whether I was not
capable of getting all the good out of your praise.
While I write, there is a strange thing that happened last night
impossible to get out of my thoughts. It may give you pain to tell you
of it, yet if with the pain come triumphant memories and hopes, as I
expect there will, you may choose the pain with them. What decides me
to tell it is that I heard you years ago allude to the destruction of
a volume of _Lamia, Isabella, &c. , to be restored to you yet_--now you
remember; also, I think, of your putting my name near Shelley's in the
end of your letter, where you say 'since I lost Shelley'. Is it not
strange that I should have transcribed for the first time, last night,
the _Indian Serenade_ that, together with some verses of Metastasio,
accompanied that book? That I should have been reserved to tell
the present possessor of them--to whom they were given by Captain
Roberts--_what_ the poem _was, and that it had been published_! It is
preserved religiously; but the characters are all but illegible, and
I needed a good magnifying-glass to be quite sure of such of them as
remain. The end is that I have rescued three or four variations in the
reading of that divine little poem, as one reads it, at least, in the
_Posthumous Poems_. It is headed the _Indian_ _Serenade_ (not _Lines
to an Indian Air_). In the first stanza the seventh line is 'Hath led
me'; in the second, the third line is 'And the champak's odours fail';
and the eighth, 'O! Beloved as thou art! ' In the last stanza, the
seventh line was, 'Oh, press it to thine own again. ' Are not all these
better readings? (even to the 'Hath' for 'Has'. ) There, I give them
you as you gave us Milton's hair. If I have mistaken in telling you,
you will understand and forgive.
I think I will ask my wife to say a word or two so I shall be sure
that you forgive. Now let my wife say the remainder. All I have
wished to do--know how little likely it was that I should succeed in
that--was to assure you of my pride and affectionate gratitude. --God
bless you ever,
R. B.
Dear friend, I will say; for I feel it must be something as good as
friendship that can forgive and understand this silence, so much like
the veriest human kind of ingratitude. When I look back and think--all
this time after that letter, and not a sign made--I wonder. Yet,
if you knew! First of all, we were silent because we waited for
information which you seemed to desire. . . . Then there were sadder
reasons. Poor _Aurora_, that you were so more than kind to (oh, how
can I think of it? ), has been steeped in tears, and some of them of a
very bitter sort. Your letter was addressed to my husband, you knowing
by your delicate true instinct where your praise would give most
pleasure; but I believe Robert had not the heart to write when I felt
that I should not have the spirits to add a word in the proper key.
When we came here from Florence a few months ago to get repose and
cheerfulness from the sight of the mountains, we said to ourselves
that we would speak to you at ease--instead of which the word was
taken from our own mouth, and we have done little but sit by sick beds
and meditate on gastric fevers. So disturbed we have been--so sad! our
darling precious child the last victim. To see him lying still on his
golden curls, with cheeks too scarlet to suit the poor patient eyes,
looking so frightfully like an angel! It was very hard. But this is
over, I do thank God, and we are on the point of carrying back our
treasure with us to Florence to-morrow, quite recovered, if a little
thinner and weaker, and the young voice as merry as ever. You are
aware that that child I am more proud of than twenty _Auroras_, even
after Leigh Hunt has praised them. He is eight years old, has never
been '_crammed_', but reads English, Italian, French, German, and
plays the piano--then, is the sweetest child! sweeter than he looks.
When he was ill, he said to me, 'You pet! don't be unhappy about
_me_. Think it's a boy in the street, and be a little sorry, but not
unhappy. ' Who could not be unhappy, I wonder?
I never saw your book called the _Religion of the Heart. _ It's the
only book of yours I never saw, and I mean to wipe out that reproach
on the soonest day possible. I receive more dogmas, perhaps (my
'perhaps' being in the dark rather), than you do. I believe in the
divinity of Jesus Christ in the intensest sense--that he was God
absolutely. But for the rest, I am very unorthodox--about the spirit,
the flesh, and the devil, and if you would not let me sit by you, a
great many churchmen wouldn't; in fact, churches do all of them, as at
present constituted, seem too narrow and low to hold true Christianity
in its proximate developments. I, at least, cannot help believing them
so.
My dear friend, can we dare, after our sins against you--can we dare
_wish_ for a letter from you sometimes? Ask, we dare not. May God
bless you. Even if you had not praised me and made me so grateful,
I should be grateful to you for three things--for your poetry (that
first), then for Milton's hair, and then for the memory I have of
our visit to you, when you sat in that chair and spoke so mildly and
deeply at once.
Let me be ever affectionately yours,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
1816-1855
TO A FRIEND
_Trials of a governess_
_July_ 1839.
I cannot procure ink, without going into the drawing-room, where I do
not wish to go. . . . I should have written to you long since, and told
you every detail of the utterly new scene into which I have lately
been cast, had I not been daily expecting a letter from yourself, and
wondering and lamenting that you did not write; for you will remember
it was your turn. I must not bother you too much with my sorrows, of
which, I fear, you have heard an exaggerated account. If you were near
me, perhaps I might be tempted to tell you all, to grow egotistical,
and pour out the long history of a private governess's trials and
crosses in her first situation. As it is, I will only ask you to
imagine the miseries of a reserved wretch like me, thrown at once into
the midst of a large family--proud as peacocks and wealthy as Jews--at
a time when they were particularly gay--when the house was filled with
company--all strangers--people whose faces I had never seen before.
In this state I had charge given me of a set of pampered, spoilt,
turbulent children, whom I was expected constantly to amuse, as well
as to instruct. I soon found that the constant demand on my stock
of animal spirits reduced them to the lowest state of exhaustion; at
times I felt--and, I suppose, seemed--depressed. To my astonishment,
I was taken to task on the subject by Mrs. ----, with a sternness of
manner and a harshness of language scarcely credible; like a fool, I
cried most bitterly. I could not help it; my spirits quite failed me
at first. I thought I had done my best--strained every nerve to please
her; and to be treated in that way, merely because I was shy and
sometimes melancholy, was too bad. At first I was for giving all up
and going home. But, after a little reflection, I determined to summon
what energy I had, and to weather the storm. I said to myself, 'I have
never yet quitted a place without gaining a friend; adversity is
a good school; the poor are born to labour, and the dependent to
endure. ' I resolved to be patient, to command my feelings, and to take
what came; the ordeal, I reflected, would not last many weeks, and I
trusted it would do me good. I recollected the fable of the willow and
the oak; I bent quietly, and now, I trust, the storm is blowing over
me. Mrs. ---- is generally considered an agreeable woman; so she is, I
doubt not, in general society. Her health is sound, her animal spirits
good, consequently she is cheerful in company; but oh! does this
compensate for the absence of every fine feeling--of every gentle and
delicate sentiment? She behaves somewhat more civilly to me now than
she did at first, and the children are a little more manageable; but
she does not know my character, and she does not wish to know it.
I have never had five minutes' conversation with her since I came,
except while she was scolding me. I have no wish to be pitied, except
by yourself; if I were talking to you I could tell you much more.
To WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
_Thanks for advice_
[1840. ]
. . . Authors are generally very tenacious of their productions, but I
am not so much attached to this but that I can give it up without
much distress. No doubt, if I had gone on, I should have made quite
a Richardsonian concern of it. .
