227. EBB to Samuel Moulton-Barrett (uncle)
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 234–235.
[Hastings]
[ca. January 1826] [1]
My dearest Sam,
I should certainly excommunicate you did not my conscience reproach me as not quite deserving an apotheosis myself so I shall even let this Epistle wash out my own offences before I say any thing more of yours. To help this merciful disposition of mine out of the ruts, Marys note last Night very much assisted, in which she mentioned your intention of finally leaving Town next week. I am heartily glad of it as your vanity may lead you to suppose and although you have remained away a week longer than I intended you should yet your promised long visit here must pay a hundred pr cent on my angel-like patience; which payment (without a pun or with one, as you please) will be a fund of joy to us all.
My “purpureus pannus” [2] by way of exordium may give you room to guess that the anxious fears I some time ago entertained about Bro’s coming have to a considerable degree subsided. So far we know from James Trant, for Papas thoughts on the subject are to us as inscrutable as if we had all been truants and adhered to the fourth form. There is a great difference between yourself, & him, at least in one respect—for if your reveries are upon a rose his are under it. <***>
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Dated by reference to “fears … about Bro’s coming.” Normally EBB would have welcomed a visit from Bro, but her fear was that he might come to take her away from Hastings too soon. However, the preceding letter indicates that he would not be making the journey.
2. “Purple patch”—a brilliant or ornate passage in a literary composition (Horace, De Arte Poetica, 15–16).
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