Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, ?late July 1843:
'As you praise Charles O'Malley so much, I really must try to get thro' the thorns & read him. I
tried only once certainly -- & then my own humour might have been partly in fault. My
conclusion then was, that I cdnt read him -- that he was a very clever fellow & the very fellow
to be written & read between the smoke of a cigar & the steam of a glass of brandy [...] His
noise made my head ache, & his loud laughing made me grave. In fact, the book appeared to
me a view of Life by the light of strong, somewhat coarse & altogether unworn animal spirits
.. & not that touching, solemn, holy thing which Life is, in the eyes of that God who died for its
purification, & those human beings who have learnt nearly all they know in the depth of its
agonies.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 5 February 1844:
'I [italics]cannot read[end italics] Lever, ... honestly & without affectation, I [italics]cannot[end
italics] [...] Over and over again have I tried to read his book -- and every time I came to the
conclusion that he was a remarkably clever writer who was unreadable by me. [...] The
chapters, I have read of him, make my head ache as if I had been sitting in the next room to
an orgy [...] of gentlemen topers, -- with their low gentility, & "hip hip hurrahs," & wine out of
wine-coolers [...] he is contracted & conventional, & unrefined in his line of conventionality --
and I cannot believe that he represents fairly even the social & jovial side of men of much
refinement'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
