Your ever affectionate
E.B.B.
To Cornelius Mathews
50 Wimpole Street: November 14, 1844.
My dear Mr. Mathews,—I write to tell you—only that there is nothing to tell—only in guard of my gratitude, lest you should come to think all manner of evil of me and of my supposed propensity to let everything pass like Mr. Horne's copies of the American edition of his work, sub silentio. Therefore I must write, and you are to please to understand that I have not up to this moment received either letter or book by the packet of October 10 which was charged, according to your intimation, with so much. I, being quite out of patience and out of breath with expectation, have repeatedly sent to Mr. Putnam, and he replies with undisturbed politeness that the ship has come in, and that his part and lot in her, together with mine, remain at the disposal of the Custom-house officers, and may remain some time longer. So you see how it is. I am waiting—simply waiting, and it is better to let you know that I am not forgetting instead.
In the meantime, your kindness will be glad to learn of the prosperity of my poems in my own country. I am more than satisfied in my most sanguine hope for them, and a little surprised besides. The critics have been good to me. 'Blackwood' and 'Tait' have this month both been generous, and the 'New Monthly' and 'Ainsworth's Magazine' did what they could. Then I have the 'Examiner' in my favor, and such heads and hearts as are better and purer than the purely critical, and I am very glad altogether, and very grateful, and hope to live long enough to acknowledge, if not to justify, much unexpected kindness. Of course, some hard criticism is mixed with the liberal sympathy, as you will see in 'Blackwood,' but some of it I deserve, even in my own eyes; and all of it I am willing to be patient under. The strange thing is, that without a single personal friend among these critics, they should have expended on me so much 'gentillesse,' and this strangeness I feel very sensitively. Mr. Horne has not returned to England yet, and in a letter which I received from him some fortnight ago he desired to have my book sent to him to Germany, just as if he never meant to return to England again. I answered his sayings, and reiterated, in a way that would make you smile, my information about your having sent the American copies to him. I made my oyez very plain and articulate. He won't say again that he never heard of it—be sure of that. Well, and then Mr. Browning is not in England either, so that whatever you send for him must await his return from the east or the west or the south, wherever he is. The new spirit of the age is a wandering spirit. Mr. Dickens is in Italy. Even Miss Mitford talks of going to France, which is an extreme case for her. Do you never feel inclined to flash across the Atlantic to us, or can you really remain still in one place?
I must not forget to assure you, dear Mr. Mathews, as I may conscientiously do, even before I have looked into or received the 'Democratic Review,' that whatever fault you may find with me, my strongest feeling on reading your article will or must be the sense of your kindness. Of course I do not expect, nor should I wish, that your personal interest in me (proved in so many ways) would destroy your critical faculty in regard to me. Such an expectation, if I had entertained it, would have been scarcely honorable to either of us, and I may assure you that I never did entertain it. No; be at rest about the article. It is not likely that I shall think it 'inadequate.' And I may as well mention in connection with it that before you spoke of reviewing me I (in my despair of Mr. Horne's absence, and my impotency to assist your book) had thrown into my desk, to watch for some opportunity of publication, a review of your 'Poems on Man,' from my own hand, and that I am still waiting and considering and taking courage before I send it to some current periodical. There is a difficulty—there is a feeling of shyness on my part, because, as I told you, I have no personal friend or introduction among the pressmen or the critics, and because the 'Athenaeum,' which I should otherwise turn to first, has already treated of your work, and would not, of course, consent to reconsider an expressed opinion. Well, I shall do it somewhere. Forgive me the appearance of my impotency under a general aspect.
Ah, you cannot guess at the estate of poetry in the eyes of even such poetical English publishers as Mr. Moxon, who can write sonnets himself. Poetry is in their eyes just a desperate speculation. A poet must have tried his public before he tries the publisher—that is, before he expects the publisher to run a risk for him. But I will make any effort you like to suggest for any work of yours; I only tell you how things are. By the way, if I ever told you that Tennyson was ill, I may as rightly tell you now that he is well, again, or was when I last heard of him. I do not know him personally. Also Harriet Martineau can walk five miles a day with ease, and believes in mesmerism with all her strength. Mr. Putnam had the goodness to write and open his reading room to me, who am in prison instead in mine.
May God bless you. Do let me hear from you soon, and believe me ever your friend,
E.B. BARRETT.
To Mrs. Martin