The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 1 of 2)

The writer of any narrative of Mrs. Browning's life, or the editor of a collection of her letters, is met at the outset of his task by the knowledge that both Mrs. Browning herself and her husband more than, once expressed their strong dislike of any such publicity in regard to matters of a personal and private character affecting themselves. The fact that expressions to this effect are publicly extant is one which has to be faced or evaded; but if it could not be fairly faced, and the apparent difficulty removed, the present volumes would never have seen the light. It would be a poor qualification for the task of preparing a record of Mrs. Browning's life, to be willing therein to do violence to her own expressed wishes and those of her husband. But the expressions to which reference has been made are limited, either formally or by implication, to publications made during their own lifetime. They shrank, as any sensitive person must shrink, from seeing their private lives, their personal characteristics, above all, their sorrows and bereavements, offered to the inspection and criticism of the general public; and it was to such publications that their protests referred. They could not but be aware that the details of their lives would be of interest to the public which read and admired their works, and there is evidence that they recognised that the public has some claims with regard to writers who have appealed to, and partly lived by, its favour. They only claimed that during their own lifetime their feelings should be consulted first; when they should have passed away, the rights of the public would begin.
The duties of the editor have been mainly those of selection and arrangement. With regard to the former task one word is necessary. It may be thought that the almost entire absence of bitterness (except on certain political topics), of controversy, of personal ill feeling of any kind, is due to editorial excisions. This is not the case. The number of passages that have been removed for fear of hurting the feelings of persons still living is almost infinitesimal; and in these the cause of offence is always something inherent in the facts recorded, not in the spirit in which they are mentioned. No person had less animosity than Mrs. Browning; it seems as though she could hardly bring herself to speak harshly of anyone. The omissions that have been made are almost wholly of passages containing little or nothing of interest, or repetitions of what has been said elsewhere; and they have been made with the object of diminishing the bulk and concentrating the interest of the collection, never with the purpose of modifying the representation of the writer's character.