The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 1 of 2)Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
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The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 1 of 2)
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861 -- Correspondence; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence
My very dear Friend,--Your kind letter I was delighted to receive. You
mistake a good deal the capacities in judgment of 'the man.'[96] The
'man' is highly refined in his tastes, and leaning to the classical
(I was going to say to _your_ classical, only suddenly I thought of
Ossian) a good deal more than I do. He has written satires in the
manner of Pope, which admirers of Pope have praised warmly and
deservedly. If I had hesitated about the conclusiveness of his
judgments, it would have been because of his confessed indisposition
towards subjects religious and ways mystical, and his occasional
insufficient indulgence for rhymes and rhythms which he calls
'_Barrettian_.' But these things render his favourable inclination
towards my 'Drama of Exile' still more encouraging (as you will see)
to my hopes for it.
Still, I do tremble a good deal inwardly when I come to think of
what your own thoughts of my poem, and poems in their two-volume
development, may finally be. I am afraid of you. You will tell me the
truth as it appears to you--upon _that_ I may rely; and I should not
wish you to suppress a single disastrous thought for the sake of the
unpleasantness it may occasion to me. My own faith is that I have made
progress since 'The Seraphim,' only it is too possible (as I confess
to myself and you) that your opinion may be exactly contrary to it.
You are very kind in what you say about wishing to have some
conversation, as the medium of your information upon architecture,
with Octavius--Occy, as we call him. He is very much obliged to you,
and proposes, if it should not be inconvenient to you, to call upon
you on Friday, with Arabel, at about one o'clock. Friday is mentioned
because it is a holiday, no work being done at Mr. Barry's. Otherwise
he is engaged every day (except, indeed, Sunday) from nine in the
morning to five in the afternoon. May God bless you, dearest Mr. Boyd.
I am ever
Your affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
[Footnote 96: John Kenyon: see the last letter.]
_To Mr. Westwood_
April 16, 1844.
... Surely, surely, it was not likely I should lean to utilitarianism
in the notice on Carlyle, as I remember the writer of that
article leans somewhere--_I_, who am reproached with
trans-trans-transcendentalisms, and not without reason, or with
insufficient reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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