966. EBB to John K enyon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 361.

50 Wimpole Street.

30th May. 1842–

My dear Cousin,

I thank you much for the sight of Mr Ticknor’s letter [1] ––& altho’ “very well for .. anything—or for .. anybody” never seems to me praise worth anything to anybody,—yet of course what he writes is quite enough, more than enough, to make me generally thankful—& without a recoil at the stab to the transcendentalism–

With the letter I return you the old black book, which is better than a red book—& rich in that building up of heavy & high sentences, the architectural music of our fathers, out of which their sons are disinherited.

Yes—thank you! I am much better for the departure of the east wind. And Papa has just given me (in his too great kindness) an Æolian harp, a double one of new construction, which turns all the surviving winds into music—so that we are on the best terms possible. Flushie is jealous of it!—he thinks it alive & does’nt like to hear me call anything “beautiful” except his ears–

And so, you will come to hear it some day—will you not?–

With double thanks, affectely—yours

EBB—

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Presumably Ticknor’s acknowledgement of An Essay on Mind and Prometheus Bound sent him by Kenyon (see letter 936, note 2). They are now in the Ticknor Library at Dartmouth (see Reconstruction, M41 and M67).

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