Won't you send your new poem to Mr. Barker, to the care of Mr. Valpy, with your Christmas benedictions?
To Mrs. Martin
.
[74 Gloucester Place:] January 23, 1837 [postmark].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,—I am standing in Henrietta's place, she says—but not, I say, to answer your letter to her yesterday, but your letter to me, some weeks ago—which I meant to answer much more immediately if the ignis fatuus of a house (you see to what a miserable fatuity I am reduced, of applying your pure country metaphors to our brick pollutions) had not been gliding just before us, and I had not much wished to be able to tell you of our settlement. As it is, however, I must write, and shall keep a solemn silence on the solemn subject of our shifting plans....
No! I was not at all disappointed in Wordsworth, although perhaps I should not have singled him from the multitude as a great man. There is a reserve even in his countenance, which does not lighten as Landor's does, whom I saw the same evening. His eyes have more meekness than brilliancy; and in his slow even articulation there is rather the solemnity and calmness of truth itself, than the animation and energy of those who seek for it. As to my being quite at my ease when I spoke to him, why how could you ask such a question? I trembled both in my soul and body. But he was very kind, and sate near me and talked to me as long as he was in the room—and recited a translation by Cary of a sonnet of Dante's—and altogether, it was quite a dream! Landor too—Walter Savage Landor ... in whose hands the ashes of antiquity burn again—gave me two Greek epigrams he had lately written ... and talked brilliantly and prominently until Bro (he and I went together) abused him for ambitious singularity and affectation. But it was very interesting. And dear Miss Mitford too! and Mr. Raymond, a great Hebraist and the ancient author of 'A Cure for a Heartache!' I never walked in the skies before; and perhaps never shall again, when so many stars are out! I shall at least see dear Miss Mitford, who wrote to me not long ago to say that she would soon be in London with 'Otto,' her new tragedy, which was written at Mr. Forrest's own request, he in the most flattering manner having applied to her a stranger, as the authoress of 'Rienzi,' for a dramatic work worthy of his acting—after rejecting many plays offered to him, and among them Mr. Knowles's.... She says that her play will be quite opposed, in its execution, to 'Ion,' as unlike it 'as a ruined castle overhanging the Rhine, to a Grecian temple.' And I do not doubt that it will be full of ability; although my own opinion is that she stands higher as the authoress of 'Our Village' than of 'Rienzi,' and writes prose better than poetry, and transcends rather in Dutch minuteness and high finishing, than in Italian ideality and passion. I think besides that Mr. Forrest's rejection of any play of Sheridan Knowles must refer rather to its unfitness for the development of his own personal talent, than to its abstract demerit, whatever Transatlantic tastes he may bring with him. The published title of the last play is 'The Daughter,' not 'The Wreckers,' although I believe it was acted as the last. I am very anxious to read 'Otto,' not to see it. I am not going to see it, notwithstanding an offered temptation to sit in the authoress's own box. With regard to 'Ion,' I think it is a beautiful work, but beautiful rather morally than intellectually. Is this right or not? Its moral tone is very noble, and sends a grand and touching harmony into the midst of the full discord of this utilitarian age. As dramatic poetry, it seems to me to want, not beauty, but power, passion, and condensation. This is my doxy about 'Ion.' Its author[[32]] made me very proud by sending it to me, although we do not know him personally. I have heard that he is a most amiable man (who else could have written 'Ion'?), but that he was a little elevated by his popularity last year!...
I have read Combe's 'Phrenology,' but not the 'Constitution of Man.' The 'Phrenology' is very clever, and amusing; but I do not think it logical or satisfactory. I forget whether 'slowness of the pulse' is mentioned in it as a symptom of the poetical aestus. I am afraid, if it be a symptom, I dare not take my place even in the 'forlorn hope of poets' in this age so forlorn as to its poetry; for my pulse is in a continual flutter and my feet not half cold enough for a pedestal—so I must make my honours over to poor papa straightway. He has been shivering and shuddering through the cold weather; and partaking our influenza in the warmer. I am very sorry that you should have been a sufferer too. It seems to have been a universal pestilence, even down in Devonshire, where dear Bummy and the whole colony have had their share of 'groans.' And one of my doves shook its pretty head and ruffled its feathers and shut its eyes, and became subject to pap and nursing and other infirmities for two or three days, until I was in great consternation for the result. But it is well again—cooing as usual; and so indeed we all are. But indeed, I can't write a sentence more without saying some of the evil it deserves—of the utilitarianisms of this corrupt age—among some of the chief of which are steel pens!
I am so glad that you liked my 'Romaunt,' and so resigned that you did not understand some of my 'Poet's Vow,' and so obliged that you should care to go on reading what I write. They vouchsafed to publish in the first number of the new series of the 'New Monthly' a little poem of mine called 'The Island,'[[33]] but so incorrectly that I was glad at the additional oblivion of my signature. If you see it, pray alter the last senseless line of the first page into 'Leaf sounds with water, in your ear,' and put 'amreeta' instead of 'amneta' on the second page; and strike out 'of' in the line which names Aeschylus! There are other blunders, [but] these are intolerable, and cast me out of my 'contentment' for some time. I have begged for [proof] sheets in future; and as none have come for the ensuing month, I suppose I shall have nothing in the next number. They have a lyrical dramatic poem of mine, 'The Two Seraphim,' which, whenever it appears, I shall like to have your opinion of. As to the incomprehensible line in the 'Poet's Vow' of which you asked me the meaning, 'One making one in strong compass,' I meant to express how that oneness of God, 'in whom are all things,' produces a oneness or sympathy (sympathy being the tendency of many to become one) in all things. Do you understand? or is the explanation to be explained? The unity of God preserves a unity in men—that is, a perpetual sympathy between man and man—which sympathy we must be subject to, if not in our joys, yet in our griefs. I believe the subject itself involves the necessity of some mysticism; but I must make no excuses. I am afraid that my very Seraphim will not be thought to stand in a very clear light, even at heaven's gate. But this is much asay about nothing ...
The Bishop of Exeter is staying and preaching at Torquay. Do you not envy them all for making part of his congregation? I am sure I do as much. I envy you your before-breakfast activity. I am never a complete man without my breakfast—it seems to be some integral part of my soul. You 'read all O'Connell's speeches.' I never read any of them—unless they take me by surprise. I keep my devotion for unpaid patriots; but Miss Mitford is another devotee of Mr. O'Connell ...
Dearest Mrs. Martin's affectionate
E.B. BARRETT.