Her religious faith.
I receive more dogmas, perhaps, than you do. I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ in the intensest sense—that He was God absolutely. But for the rest, I am very unorthodox about the spirit, the flesh, and the devil, and if you would not let me sit by you, a great many churchmen wouldn’t; in fact, churches, all of them, as at present constituted, seem too narrow and low to hold true Christianity in its proximate developments.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Letter to Leigh Hunt. ‘Correspondence of Leigh Hunt,’ edited by his son. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1862.
May I say of myself that I hope there is nobody in the world with a stronger will and aspiration to escape from sectarianism in any sort or sense, when I have eyes to discern it—and that the sectarianism of the National Churches, to which I do not belong, and of the dissenting bodies, to which I do, stand together before me on a pretty just level of detestation? Truth (as far as each thinker can apprehend), apprehended—and love, comprehending—make my idea—my hope of a church. But the Christianity of the world is apt to wander from Christ and the hope of Him.
Elizabeth Barrett: ‘Letters to R. H. Horne.’
Her candor.
You are my friend, I hope, but you do not on that account lose the faculty of judging me, or the right of judging me frankly. I do loathe the whole system of personal compliment, as a consequence of a personal interest, and I beseech you not to suffer yourself ever by any sort of kind impulse from within, or extraneous influence otherwise, to say or modify a word relating to me.... I set more price on your sincerity than on your praise, and consider it more closely connected with the quality called kindness.... Now, mind! your best compliment to me is the truth at all times, without reference to sex or friendship. I excuse the unbonneting.
Elizabeth Barrett: ‘Letters to R. H. Horne.’