1756. EBB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 221–222.
50 Wimpole Street
Friday. [8 November 1844] [1]
My dear Mrs Jameson I am not strong against temptation—and if I had had your note an hour earlier, I could not have resisted the pleasure of completing that idea of you which came to me with so much kindness in it & around it,—I shd have been forced to ask you at least to come to me bodily. But it is too late today—and you will let me think of what might have happened, as of a pleasure just missed. I seem to have touched the fringe of your garment [2] as it is! Thank you, dear Mrs Jameson. It is a kind, welcome note—it is the sound of your voice from the next house. [3]
As to Miss Martineau, “miracle” seems the only word to suit her case—but if mesmerism is indeed the only unassociated agency in her recovery, she is nearly alone in her experience of such a benefit through such means. Even those nervous disorders with which the agency has been most successful, do not in general pass away like a flash of lightening as her disease has done. It is a peculiar case, even among the happiest effects of the agency as reported by the most believing witnesses. For my own part, I feel little inclination to make the experiment. I am very much better in the first place,—and unless Mesmerism can lay the east winds, I do not see exactly how it wd be reasonable in me to look for such good from it as wd make it worth while to risk my present advance in health & even strength–
And then, .. (must I say?) I recoil from certain characters of this mystery—and especially from the subjection of the will to the influence of the ‘not I’. I believe so much, that I fear. Even if the temptation were strong (which as I am, it is not) I shd hesitate long before I gave myself up bound .. soul & body. Now does’nt it sound like it? Do I exaggerate?–
How good & kind of you to write to me! I come back to that thought, you see, & shall dwell on it, when this note of mine is finished & gone. Your words in respect to my poems, touch me to all the depth of my knowledge of what sorrow is.
May God bless you!
Ever & truly yours
Elizabeth B Barrett
Address: Mrs Jameson / 51 Wimpole Street.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. This letter is a response to a note from Mrs. Jameson which EBB refers to in letter 1759.
2. Cf. Matthew 9:20.
3. Apparently, Mrs. Jameson was visiting the owner of 51 Wimpole Street, Miss C. Kindersley, to whom RB refers in a letter to EBB on 8 June 1846.
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