1568. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 258–259.
[London]
Thursday– [14 March 1844] [1]
I enclose Miss Martineau’s letter to you, & return the catalogue, thanking you.
But I, who am so used to thanking you through all the changes of gratitude, scarcely know how to do so for your great, great kindness of yesterday,—comprehending only, that to make you understand the extent of the good you did me, is the truest way of recognizing & even of rewarding it. You found me yesterday with my heart full, & afraid of speaking lest it shd run over. To be poized on the point of a sharp doubt with a fear all round, was the only obvious thing in my position, .. but was nothing to the pain you did not see. The real pain, .. worse than any mere literary anxiety cd produce, .. lay in the remembrance, with which I found myself at every turn, face to face, .. reminding me of that yes & no I used to trust in like a conviction, & which was deserving of the trust like an instinct, .. of the clear exquisite judgement, sure as the love [2] .. & more of it, I could not say– Such thoughts have made me heartsick with sense of loss & vacancy these latter days, & have given that wretched ms a dreadful power of torture. [3] You do not know what you did when you took it away——the act was a simple instinct of your kindness—& I thank you for it again & again, my dearest Mr Kenyon. When I was a child & wrote verses on our first separation which made me shed tears too—only not like these,—I took my motto from Lycidas, & thought in happy pedantry that it was appropriate. [4] And you see!– If there were no God, it wd seem like a sarcasm of destiny. Forgive me—the floodgates will open sometimes. But do not take any notice of all this.
For the rest, you are aware that the most affectionate sympathy & even general intelligence & cultivation were not enough for what I wanted,––for the poem I mean. Thank you again & again.
And do not take too much trouble—because there will be no time (we are driven so late) for minor criticisms & alterations, except in flagrant cases. I have had a proposition from America this morning to bring out an Edition there at the same time. [5] Can you read what I write today?
Your grateful & affectionate
EBB.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Date based on letter 1567, which refers to Kenyon’s borrowing Miss Martineau’s letter.
2. EBB is referring to her mother.
3. The ms. of “A Drama of Exile” (see letter 1576).
4. “For we were nurs’d upon the self-same hill” (“Lycidas,” 1638, line 23) was used to introduce “Verses to My Brother,” included in An Essay on Mind (1826).
5. This letter is missing, but Henry G. Langley of New York published the American edition on 1 October 1844, under the title A Drama of Exile.
___________________
