In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,
Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood,
Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,
Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—
Nothing repels thee, ... Dearest, teach me so
To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!
E. B. Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese).
Here two fine thoughts of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Browning are inspired by the vision of Monica, the saintly mother of the great St. Augustine (354-430).
This is a good illustration of the need of notes. Without a reference to St. Monica’s vision, I think that readers would be repelled, rather than attracted, by Mrs. Browning’s sonnet. It does not accord with one’s sense of modesty that a lady should say to her lover, “My unattractive person and incurable illness turned other men away, but you saw that, behind all this, I was ‘a patient angel waiting for a place in the new Heavens.’” I myself could not understand how Mrs. Browning could write and her husband could publish this poem, until Hodgson, in one of his letters to me, referred to “the use made by Mrs. Browning of St. Monica’s vision in one of her sonnets.”