The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II, page 239 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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te beard. Even Robert is touched.
Best love from him and your
Ever attached BA.
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_To Mrs. Martin_
Florence: February [1857].
My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I needn't say how much, how very much, pleasure your letter gave me. That the poem should really have touched you, reached you, with whatever drawbacks, is a joy. And then that Mr. Martin should have read it with any sort of interest! It was more than I counted on, as you know. Thank you, dearest Mrs. Martin--thank both of you for so much sympathy.
In respect to certain objections, I am quite sure you do me the justice to believe that I do not willingly give cause for offence. Without going as far as Robert, who holds that I 'couldn't be coarse if I tried,' (only that!) you will grant that I don't habitually dabble in the dirt; it's not the way of my mind or life. If, therefore, I move certain subjects in this work, it is because my conscience was first moved in me not to ignore them. What has given most offence in the book, more than the story of Marian--far more!--has been the reference to the condition of women in our cities, which a woman oughtn't to refer to, by any manner of means, says the conventional tradition. Now I have thought deeply otherwise. If a woman ignores these wrongs, then may women as a sex continue to suffer them; there is no help for any of us--let us be dumb and die. I have spoken therefore, and in speaking have used plain words--words which look like blots, and which you yourself would put away--words which, if blurred or softened, would imperil perhaps the force and righteousness of the moral influence. Still, I certainly will, when the time comes, go over the poem carefully, and see where an offence can be got rid of without loss otherwise. The second edition was issued so early that Robert would not let me alter even a comma, would not let me look between the pages in order to the least alteration. He said (the truth) that my head was dizzy-blind with the book, and that, if