TO MRS. WILLIAM TRENCH.
July, 1820.
I send you, as you desire, a few of the Monodies,[63] and am delighted that you do not think me so weak as to look on the criticism of a friend as a mishap. What you say is perfectly true. It is very inferior to the four beautiful lines quoted in The Morning Chronicle, of course very inferior to the subject; and it is even inferior to the author; as I have never written anything on so good a theme with so little originality or effect. However, had it been much worse, I should have wished to strew on the grave of our patriot a weed from the desert, if I could not procure a flower; a pebble, if I could not bring a gem; and I was foolish enough to limit myself in time, being desirous to finish it immediately, after the thought occurred that it might be printed for the day of the funeral.
I should write much better if I had ever been criticized. The heaths, and many other flowers, require wind (not merely air, but blasts of wind) as well as sunshine; and it would have been both a stimulus and an improvement, if I had ever heard the voice of truth. But alas! that was impossible; and my little attempts can have no merit but that of showing to those who love me, what I might have done, had I not been deprived of the advantages of classical learning; had I not been flattered in my youth, as one to whom mental acquirements were unnecessary; had I not been the fond mother of nine children, and the troublesome wife of one whom I do not much like to have out of my sight;—four very unfavourable circumstances to the cultivation of any art or science whatever. I have said more on this subject than it is worth; but when I write to those I love or esteem, I am naturally diffuse; beware, therefore, of beginning a correspondence with
Your affectionate sister.
I do not know whether the two following stanzas were intended to form part of a larger whole, or are complete in themselves. They are, to my mind, the highest which the writer accomplished in verse; at all events, the highest which has come under my eye.
Their eyes have met. The irrevocable glance
Stamped on the fantasy of each a face,