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Edward Dowden - passing mentions of Buchanan
In the online collection of Victorian Letters at the Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University, Waco, Texas there are three letters from Edward Dowden to his future wife, Elizabeth Dickinson West and a fragment of one from Miss West to Mr. Dowden which include passing mentions of Robert Buchanan, which I have highlighted.
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16th November, 1871. Edward Dowden to Elizabeth Dickinson West.
[original]
[top left of page - lines referencing “clever”:] I hope you will get over the offensive “exceedingly clever” which is only an ugly shorthand symbol for “which I liked very much”
50 Wellington Road
Nov 16. 1871.
My dear Miss West,
Yesterday in a letter from Robt Buchanan he says “Our friend Strahan tells me you are a friend of Miss West, who wrote the exceedingly clever paper on Browning in the Dark Blue Magazine. Do you think she also would accept a copy of the Drama? (his Drama of Kings). If so, I should be proud to send it to her provided you will send her address.”
Which I sent. His address is 4. Bernard St, Russell Square, London W.
I haven’t yet seen the poem, & have not great faith in R. Buchanan’s powers.
Thank you for whatever you said kindly of me to Browning & for your promise to let me hear if he should say anything in reply.
The Spectator has another very friendly word to say of your paper —
I think from Strahan’s speaking of you to R. Buchanan that your article for C. R. must if not actually accepted (which I should expect) be at least under very favourable consideration. An essay on Swinburne from you would be of much value. I don’t think you need be apprehensive of the “British person of respectability”. I believe anything you say now will be listened to with respect.
I had a long & most pleasant evening with John Burroughs who came here with an introduction from Whitman. He is a very old & valued friend of Walt’s—a naturalist himself—like Whitman in a little government office. He has written a book of about 130 pp on Whitman, a copy of which he said he would send to you when he returns to America. He told me a great deal about Whitman, his tenderness & gentleness, his love of children & their love of him, (he has a number of nephews & nieces) his silence, & splendid flow of speech when roused. He is thinking of writing a book on the soldiers of the American war. Mr Burroughs said of Miller “He has never had courage to confront the real facts of the West” & I am sure he is right. He idealizes away the facts. I would give all his “brown children of the sun” for a veritable portrait of an Indian woman. (Still he is a poet by kind—a genuine nature though not a really strong one). Mr. B. said “Whitman & Browning help me. I have got great help from Whitman. I like Tennyson too. He is a luxury,” That seemed to me very right.
I have written two or three little things in verse, & hope to write more, but my time is all in splinters & shards, & I require great idleness as the husk in which any of my kernels, which have life in them, may grow.
I should like to show you Mrs Gilchrist’s “A Woman’s Estimate of Walt Whitman.”
Yours very truly,
E. Dowden.
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20th November, 1871. Edward Dowden to Elizabeth Dickinson West.
[original]
50 Wellington Road
Nov. 20. 1871
My dear Miss West,
Thank you for deciding to show me Browning’s letter. Do you not perceive that it is a signal triumph for me, & a humiliation to you. Who said you would do things worth doing? And who said foolishly that you were “only a woman”,—with imperfect education—&c &c &c ? Now my judgment is confirmed. If I am wrong, Browning & a good many other people share my mistake.
As to my sonnets I should I don’t doubt have got pleasure—had Browning said anything satisfactory about them – but as it is I don’t feel the want of any expression on the subject of them from him. (There was not much for anyone to find in them, but yet there is “a little good grain too”, which I believe I can rate at about its right & final value myself, now that the morsels of poetry are away from me.)
As to the lawfulness of too much aesthesis. The experiencing any experience absolutely is so precious that one ought rarely refuse a mood which tends to absoluteness. Such self-protecting instincts as you speak of are put to sleep by the aesthesis. One doesn’t think of honouring other perceptions when a rose is red & full of perfume. And every part of one is enriched by enriching any part. One could die in Thermopylae with greater self devotion for having known how delicious claret of the vintage of (Here I break down because I know nothing about wine) of 1832(?) is. Our sensations are divine & full of remote effects on our nature, (There is no matter in the universe. In tasting a peach we are engaged in a spiritual service, & are in the immediate presence of the most Divine.) Every sensation & every thought lead into an immeasurable abyss of Deity. Parcelling ourselves out into faculties & classes of perception is death. To be all in every part is life, & one cannot lose oneself because one is then a spiritual atom & indivisible. And so one joys in being tossed about the universe, never afraid of losing oneself, now in the heart of a rose, wholly lost in it, now in the dread depths of grace, now an atom in the brain of the Demon of Negation & prepared for every contingency, entering carelessly every wind of circumstance, & assured of immortality (This is a rhapsody which I am aware is no adequate answer to your very true criticism.)
I am sure R. Buchanan wants no review however glad he might be to see one. His book doesn’t suggest much to me
I hope you will come luckily into Blake’s presence—
I wonder would Fichte be to you what he has been to me. But perhaps you know him —
Yours truly
E Dowden
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Undated fragment. Elizabeth Dickinson West to Edward Dowden.
[original]
an entrance into it. through the setting distinctions between one sort of perceptions and another. For this educational purpose, I accept Brownings creed respecting Aesthesis—(as stated in Easter day part XX) as being the best suited for our present needs. — And I do think we have need to guard against being over much engrossed by aesthesis. . [Don’t you know J. H. Newmans sermon on the “Invisible world”;? the most beautiful, I think, of all his proven poems.] (— I think I understand my own meaning, but, I doubt whether I have expressed it at all intelligibly – – it is perhaps somewhat absurd to drift into a metaphysical question in a letter – but it grew out of what you said in yours.)
Fichte I do not know; at some future time I must try to get a little way into him.
Did you ever feel as if out & out materialism wouldn’t be at all an uncomfortable creed if one were sure of it – ? In reading Lucretius (Monro’s translation) there came to me queer indescribably restful feeling. The world seemed so large & so stable in its eternity of matter. & all care as to the problems of one’s own insignificant human ego vanished for the time being –
– But this is wrong – the pain of uncertainty is nobler than the Lucretian peace.
Yours truly – E. D. West.
I had a letter the other day from Mr Buchanan – longish – & in tone friendly – He speaks of his own efforts by the anonymous pen to procure recognition for Browning. He says that he nevertheless finds “false notes abounding in Brownings later poems” “faults lying deeper than style. & that in a full analysis a painful stress ought to be laid on these” –
– Imperfections I do see in Browning, but assuredly no falsenesses.
no answer of course to this letter.
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17th May 1872. Edward Dowden to Elizabeth Dickinson West.
[original]
M. Arnold seeks peace & sanity by looking within for the peculiar direction one’s personality dictates—Browning writes the will with great influences without & attains strength by such union –
50. Wellington Road.
May 17. 1872
My dear Miss West,
When you say that “Colour-Music” is you first bit of poetry I think the meaning is that there is in it the lyrical cry of pleasure. It is full of delight, & therefore could not but be good. The idea is one which though it has a scientific basis is so dangerously near the grasp of the Fancy that I have feared & at times almost disliked it; but here the reality of the pleasure, assuming this form, makes the result perfectly satisfactory—(a synthesis, not an analogy) The breadth & movement of the last four lines is the greatest result of yours in verse that I have seen. I suggest a possible flaw (not being sure of it) the “here” & “hear” in two adjoining lines (both being the same syllable of the line) – In “Prayer” there is something of laboured movement in the verse as if the thought retarded its own expression. I do not note this as a fault, but as a fact. I think the sonnet (whether you call it poetry or prose;–I call it poetry) has eminently a raison d’être. You know yourself, but a confirmation adds to the force of one’s conscience the danger of rhymes which are identical terminations, “ness” & “ness”, “y” & “y”– (But of course they are to be found in the best writers). In “Alone-ness”, I fancy, you undertook a more difficult morsel of work than in either of the others, & I think you succeed until the last line. I doubt whether I shall get reconciled to the introduction in a last line, when the reader is not wanting like Byron to “break his mind on something craggy” I doubt whether I can reconcile myself to your putting what verbally is a rock of offence & stone of stumbling in his way. the word “I” – Soul. And secondly I object to a final Alexandrine as tending to demoralize the Sonnet-form, & introduce a climax in it, which you wd be unwilling to be guilty of. I have tried to find faults, but in sincerity the impression of all that you have sent me is that which does not make one fault-finding, or at least makes one anxious to observe faults only because what is good ought to be better. The “River Dream” is made something different from the ordinary River of Time imagery by the vision of “One living soul, there sat in each frail boat”. (I can imagine an illustration by Blake). Did you ever repeat it for “the young Bessie”, who comforted you in so original a fashion? Perhaps she would “hate” you more if she heard it. Its sincerity strikes me. Essie doesn't say thoughtful things, but is perpetually bringing love to be accepted – when she goes off content. & she is decidedly bright – recently she has begun to show almost immediate sorrow after the hot speeches she makes in her little fits of passion: as if they seemed to her cruel. We took our expedition into the country yesterday – a long drive to the Dublin mountains, but Essie chose to stay with some play-fellows. We saw Sutton & the sea under it.
I have been knocked-about a good deal by various things for the last week, & have settled to nothing happily: now I get a quiet piece of time for some days I think. Mr Wright walked in on Wednesday evening with the proposal that I should give up my lectures & go to Italy with him. I fear it can’t be. He goes to Killarney you know I suppose, on Saturday – If I were to get away from work it should be to go to Germany with my father who is not well. (He is 72 years old, & I do think the best man I know, living really for others, most simple in his own habits, & thoughtfully applying what he spares on himself (i.e. a great deal) to helping forward this & that person; in secret very often. Of course he has faults, of which one is a want of getting into sympathy instinctively with people, & so he gets the credit of being hard with some people, & he is too much afraid of giving & receiving pain, & would bear a year of uncomfortable silence rather than have a painful talk – my mother was an inordinately generous woman, & never really just, but wishing to be just she would lay hold of rules & principles & apply them with blind rigour – & she required a rigid theology to take the place of her natural goodness, & humble & keep it in a secondary position. She had always in a rather uncultured way a great love of poetry & pictures & belief in such things over which belief theology kept a watch, declaring that they were worthless apart from the fruits of conversion &c &c. She was immensely energetic, passionate & passionately loving, especially loving me, who was for ever getting ill, & never at any school.
I may not be so easily able to escape from some prose writing. Mr Morley wishes to print “Laprade” in the June. F. R. & perhaps I shall write two or three other articles in continuation from time to time. “Laprade” I don’t think you’ll care for. I hope R. Buchanan has not honoured you with his vile reprint of the “Fleshly School” – If he has you will think Baudelaire more atrocious than he sometimes is – But Baudelaire’s studies of vice I can’t imagine would do anyone harm, (although some of them have no right to exist) & there is a great deal of real beauty & pure feeling in his poetry. My “Progress” book would be absorbing – I can never do two things at the same time and the knowledge of this, & not the more vain love of taking extreme measures with oneself, made me resolve to make the experiment of verse – writing a complete experiment by giving up prose (as I must) for the time – A large subject does occur to me, but I have not drawn it out of the distance to look at it face to face because one should then go on, or suffer loss. It will, if ever written (which of course is most doubtful) move around an attempt at revolution probably in Paris. The leading spirit a grey old Socialist, & perhaps Atheist – of a powerful personality, but not wise in knowledge of men & events. His second in command, a kind of Cassius, knowing what is right but without personal influence, & never able to effect what he knows. A young man ardent, a literary Republican, with his commonplace ideal, enthusiasms is solicited to join – his name being important – his true tendency is in an altogether different direction. The old fellow overcomes his conscience of what is best. Women would be introduced – perhaps an Ophelia – lover of the young man, incapable of understanding or helping him, from whom he breaks partly away, & partly remains attached to – & perhaps a shrill revolutionary female & perhaps a noble conservative woman. The miserable little scheme would fail, & my old hero be shot. I think the young one would drift off into some ignoble life & lose faith in his (never realized) ideas – (I have said nothing of this to anyone – not that it is any secret, or need be, but talk is a foolish thing.) The form, dramatic & possibly descriptive like Spanish Gipsy —
I think letters needn’t be answers so I won’t go after you into talk about Robertson. I like to indulge a prejudice here & there extravagantly, (to keep my mind in tone I say, but don’t explain how), & one such prejudice is directed against Stoppard Brooke (of whom or whose writings I hardly know anything). He is such a conceited fellow, & says such liberal things, & enlightened, artistic aesthetic, advanced, beautiful things! & never with the accent of conviction, & I am sure writes the most beautiful letters ten sheets long to Broad-church ladies about their spiritual trials & difficulties. & I do not doubt feels himself in Robertson’s mantle, with the much finer mantle of Stoppard Brooke worn gracefully in addition. If in your way Mcleod Campbell’s “Christ the Bread of Life” will repay you, & not distract you – I have just read it in Mr Groves’ copy. He has fully the accent of Conviction, & uses his Christian experience as a kind of organon in truth-seeking. (but of course there’s only a moderate amount to be got out of a small book directed to one subject). I doubt he’d consider me a Christian in any right sense of the word – I am about sure ‘Hamerling’, if you care to note, wd, suit the Fortnightly.
— My Rossetti lecture like all the lectures I have given on recent poets except Wordsworth (& that was only a grouping of other criticism from a point of view) was viva voce, but I shall now perhaps try to set down the chief points I tried to bring out: if so, I shall send it to you. Today I lectured on Mr. Arnold. He never is absolute in anything – never quite attaining peace, passion, truth, love or knowledge – (or art?); He is many things partly (e.g worldly & unworldly), & hence the sorrow of his life. In the matter of love I contrasted him, R. Browning & Rossetti. What Mr. Arnold expresses is the close approach of hearts to find real union impossible & the slow failing of passion & joy – ( see the Switzerland poems) – “To meet & mix” is the Browning initial success, & then begins glad invited progress Godwards, through art, nature, &c – Attainment of some desired fact or hour and delay in it, & nothing further is the Rossetti ideal. (I am expressing my meaning very imperfectly, but you will go through the ill chosen words to what I mean) — I got for a while rather impatient to send you such little things as I have written in verse – but I will delay because the delay adds a motive to try & do something better than the poor little things already done – (A few years ago I wanted sympathy at once; now I can wait for the particular expression of it which is pleasantest to me; wait ever so long – – for the same reason I have sent nothing to Yeats who has been very kind on former occasions; & partly because I suspect he would not care for my more recent way of feeling – Positivist art wd please him, or, strangely different, art like Blake’s.
We heard a most delightful pianoforte recital of Pauer's, on Tuesday I think; I hope you don't think Halle superior to Pauer. Halle strikes me as so very self-conscious – see how delicate an artist I am! Browning I have heard (as is natural) admires Rubenstein immensely.
— I suppose we shall soon be reading “Fifine at the Fair”. In all probability you know Freytag’s “Die Verlorene Handschrift” but if not, read it – I have it both in German & English—the first 2 vols are delightful. I hope sometime when we come back for the Autumn you & your brother will come & look through such books as we have to see if there is anything new to you among them – Mrs Dowden & I had for a good while been conjecturing whether you would some time or other be willing to come & see us here in some more satisfactory way than by bearing cards & introducing them at the door. (But if such a pleasure is possible, it can wait.) What are we to do if our letters cross again!
Yours Truly
E. Dowden.
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The following extracts are taken from Letters Of Edward Dowden and His Correspondents (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1914):
From a letter to his brother John, August 22nd, 1865 (p. 20):
‘I read the Quarterly on R. Browning hastily. I am reading a volume of R. Buchanan’s poems now, and I think them admirable, but if I were to risk a prophecy I should say that Mrs Swinburne’s cousin, I think: the author of “Atalanta in Calydon,” is the most promising of the young writers. . . .’
From a letter to John Burroughs, December 28th, 1871 (p. 55)
‘Mrs Dowden wishes me to thank you for W. O’Connor’s “The Carpenter” in anticipation, if you should find a copy; and she is a little vexed with me for not having more directly said in a letter I wrote, before yours to me came, that you had given her as much pleasure as you gave me by your book “Wake Robin” (which when you were here I had not known. I was directed to it by a reference in a letter from Robert Buchanan). Since then we have got some pictures of American birds, not very good I daresay, but enough to do something towards illustrating your book.
Have you seen that the article against Rossetti, signed W. Thomas Maitland (“The Fleshly School of Poetry” in the Contemporary Review), was really by Buchanan? It was a grievously dishonest, ill-tempered article, and I do not see how either Buchanan or Strahan, the publisher, can come well out of the matter. Rossetti’s vindication of his poem in The Athenæum I thought most complete, and written in an admirable spirit.
(However, I fancy you will so far agree with Buchanan—and so do I—in thinking D. G. Rossetti’s poems over-estimated at present. They try to give “beauty without the lion.” That whole passage of your book, quoted by W. O’Connor, seems to contain the piece of criticism most wanted at the present time.’
From a letter to John Burroughs, September 3rd, 1872 (p.64)
‘An adhesion given to Whitman which was interesting to me was that of Alexander Strahan, the publisher, indicated by a casual reference to W. in a memorial article on Norman Macleod in the Contemporary Review (“One of the truest poets of our day,” or some such phrase). It was interesting to me because my Westminster Article was in print for the Contemp., and just about to appear when Strahan and Dean Alford has a talk over it and decided it was too “dangerous” to appear, and Dean Alford wrote to me in a contemptuous way of Whitman’s work as poet. (I fear poor Dean Alford died in his sins—he always loved the safe and the mediocre—but Strahan is converted), by, I suppose, Buchanan.
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