Landor’s delight in ‘Aurora Leigh.’
I am reading a poem full of thought and fascinating with fancy—Mrs. Browning’s ‘Aurora Leigh.’ In many pages there is the wild imagination of Shakespeare. I had no idea that any one in this age was capable of so much poetry. I am half drunk with it. Never did I think I should have a good hearty draught of poetry again: the distemper had got into the vineyard that produced it. Here are indeed, even here, some flies upon the surface, as there always will be upon what is sweet and strong.
Walter Savage Landor: Letter to J. Foster, 1857. ‘Walter Savage Landor: A Biography,’ by John Forster. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869.
George Eliot’s enjoyment.
We are reading ‘Aurora Leigh,’ for the third time, with more enjoyment than ever. I know no book that gives me a deeper sense of communion with a large as well as beautiful mind.
Marian Evans Lewes: Letter to Sara Hennell, 1857. ‘George Eliot’s Life,’ edited by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885.
Sympathetic criticism of the ‘Portuguese Sonnets.’