Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/96

80 progress of existence and experience; and, in some sort—since "we learn in suffering what we teach in song"—my songs may be fitter to teach. But if it wore not presumptuous language on the lips of one to whom life is more than usually uncertain, my favourite wish for this work would be, that it be received by the public as a stop in the right track, towards a future indication of more value and acceptability. I would fain do better—and I feel as if I might do better: I aspire to do better. . . . In any case, while my poems are full of faults—as I go forward to my critics and confess—they have my heart and life in them—they are not empty shells. . . . Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing: there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor leisure, for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work—not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal being—but as the completest expression of that being, to which I could attain—and as work I offer it to the public—feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration—but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some protection with tho reverent and sincere.

The collection was received by quite an outburst of applause. Although the critics, with their usual dread of committing themselves too deeply, all found something to object to in the work, one admiring what another disliked, and the other disliking what the former admired, they all arrived at the conclusion that another true and great poet had arisen. "The critics," says Miss Barrett, "have all, according to their measure, been kind and generous to me. For the newspapers, besides those I mentioned, the Examiner sounded a clarion for me. I am well pleased altogether." To Horne she says,—

I have had a long and most kind letter from Harriet Martineau, and from Mrs. Jameson, and a kind note from Mr. Landor, and others. Now I do beseech you, by whatever regard you may feel for me (in which I am ambitious to believe), to write to mo a kind letter too—that is, a sincere letter. Do not fancy yourself obliged to write compliments to me—surely our friendship has outgrown such mere