[The following is in E.B.B.'s handwriting.]
With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar;
Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ...
Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler,
And the blockheads have fought me all round.
With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar;
Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ...
Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler,
And the blockheads have fought me all round.
With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar;
Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ...
Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler,
And the blockheads have fought me all round.
With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar;
Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ...
Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler,
And the blockheads have fought me all round.
With my compass I take up my ciphers, poor scholar;
Who myself shall be taken down soon under the ground ...
Since the world at my learning roars out in its choler,
And the blockheads have fought me all round.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Tuesday.
[Post-mark, February 10, 1846.]
Ever dearest, I have been possessed by your 'Luria' just as you would have me, and I should like you to understand, not simply how fine a conception the whole work seems to me, so developed, but how it has moved and affected me, without the ordinary means and dialect of pathos, by that calm attitude of moral grandeur which it has—it is very fine. For the execution, that too is worthily done—although I agree with you, that a little quickening and drawing in closer here and there, especially towards the close where there is no time to lose, the reader feels, would make the effect stronger—but you will look to it yourself—and such a conception must come in thunder and lightning, as a chief god would—must make its own way ... and will not let its poet go until he speaks it out to the ultimate syllable. Domizia disappoints me rather. You might throw a flash more of light on her face—might you not? But what am I talking? I think it a magnificent work—a noble exposition of the ingratitude of men against their 'heroes,' and (what is peculiar) an humane exposition ... not misanthropical, after the usual fashion of such things: for the return, the remorse, saves it—and the 'Too late' of the repentance and compensation covers with its solemn toll the fate of persecutors and victim. We feel that Husain himself could only say afterward ... 'That is done.' And now—surely you think well of the work as a whole? You cannot doubt, I fancy, of the grandeur of it—and of the subtilty too, for it is subtle—too subtle perhaps for stage purposes, though as clear, ... as to expression ... as to medium ... as 'bricks and mortar' ... shall I say?
'A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one.'