"Saturday.
Mr Kenyon came yesterday—& do you know when he took out those
verses [Landor's verse to Browning] & spoke his preface & I understood
what was to follow, I had a temptation from my familiar Devil not to say I had
read them before—. I had the temptation strong & clear– For he (Mr K) told
me that your sister let him see them——.
But no– My ‘vade retro [get behind me]’
prevailed, & I spoke the truth & shamed the devil & surprised Mr Kenyon besides as I
could observe. Not an observation did he make till he was just going away half
an hour afterwards, & then he said rather dryly .. 'And now may I ask how
long ago it was when you first read those verses?—was it a fortnight ago?—' It
was better I think that I should not have made a mystery of such a simple thing,
.. & yet I felt half vexed with myself & with him besides– But the
verses,—how he praised them! More than I thought of doing .. as verses—though
there is beauty & music & all that ought to be. Do you see clearly now
that the latter lines refer to the combination in you, .. the qualities over
& above those held in common with Chaucer?– And I have heard this morning
from two or three of the early readers of the Chronicle (I never care to see it
till the evening) that the verses are there—so
that my wishes have fulfilled themselves those at least—strangely, for
wishes of mine .. which generally ‘go by contraries’ as the soothsayers declare
of dreams. How kind of you to send me the fragment to Mr Forster! & how I
like to read it. Was the Hebrew yours then .. written then, I mean
.. or written now?"
Browning had sent her a letter that Landor had sent to Forster in 1836 praising Browning. Browning had written in Hebrew on the back of the envelope a quote from Proverbs: "...and a good report maketh the bones fat."
"Mr Kenyon told me that you were to dine with him on tuesday,
& I took for granted, at first hearing, that you would come on wednesday
perhaps to me—& afterwards I saw the possibility of the two ends being
joined without much difficulty–— Still, I was not sure, before your letter came,
how it might be.
That you really are better is the best news of all—thank you for
telling me. It will be wise not to go out too much—‘æquam servare mentem [to keep your mind even]’
as Landor quotes,.. in this as in the
rest– Perhaps that worst pain was a sort of crisis .. the sharp turn of the road
about to end .. oh, I do trust it may be so.
Mr K. wrote to Landor to the effect .. that it was not because he
(Mr K) held you in affection .. nor because the verses expressed
critically the opinion entertained of you by all who could judge .. nor because
they praised a book with which his own name was associated .. but for the
abstract beauty of those verses .. for that reason he could not help
naming them to Mr Landor– All of which was repeated to me yesterday."
But apparently Miss Barrett was not that impressed with Landor's poetry, only that it praised Browning. The exact opposite opinion of Kenyon.
"Also I heard of you from George, who admired you .. admired you
.. as if you were a chancellor in posse[potentially], a
great lawyer in esse [in fact]—& then he thought
you .. what he never could think a lawyer … 'unassuming.' And
you .. you are so kind!– Only that makes me think bitterly what I
have thought before, but cannot write today–"
I wonder what Browning told George that made Miss Barrett think him 'so kind' and bitter at her previous thoughts. Hmmm....
"It was goodnatured of Mr Chorley to send me a copy of his book,
& he sending so few—very! George who admires you, does not tolerate
Mr Chorley .. (did I tell you ever?—) declares that the affectation is ‘bad’,
& that there is a dash of vulgarity .. which I positively refuse to believe,
& should, I fancy, though face to face with the most vainglorious of
waistcoats. How can there be vulgarity even of manners, with so much mental
refinement? I never cd believe in those combinations of contradictions."
Never judge a writer by his waistcoat.
" ‘An obvious matter,’ you think! as obvious, as your 'green hill'
.. which I cannot see. For the rest .. my thought upon your ‘great fact’
of the 'two days,' is quite different from your’s .. for I think directly …
‘So little’–! so dreadfully little!! What shallow earth for a deep root! What
can be known of me in that time?' So there, is the only good, you see,
that comes from making calculations on a slip of paper! 'It is not & it
cannot come to good.' I would rather look at
my seventyfive letters—there is room to
breathe in them. And this is my idea (ecce! [behold]) of monumental brevity .. & hic
jacet [here lies] at last your EBB–"
The 'obvious matter' she refers to is Browning's observation that the time between their visits seemed longer to him despite their being more frequent. He added the hours they had been together to totalling nearly two days and she is amazed that it is so little. "What shallow earth for a deep root!" is a wonderful observation. Apparently he knew enough about her after seeing her one time to make her to object of his everlasting adoration.
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