1708. EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 130–131.
50 Wimpole Street
Sept. 9. 1844.
My dear Lady Margaret,
I hope that before you receive this note, you will have learnt the word of the riddle about the books, & read in the little letter enclosed in the parcel containing them, addressed to Eastnor Castle, how I was stupid & careless overmuch, & forgot the second of September & mislaid the London direction, & rectified my misdoings by sending a parcel off to Eastnor & hoping you wd have it in your hands in a few hours. Probably your Ladyship crossed it on the road to Worcester, & may have been followed back faithfully by it, before now. I do earnestly hope so. I am vexed with my carelessness, doubly, .. & cannot think of an excuse to make availing. I also wish you to have the books, before the reviews put any evil ideas into your head (unawares) about them,—and I do protest so against a notion which one or two papers have taken up about ‘schools’, [1] feeling so conscious, to the heart of my heart, that what I have written has been written of no ‘school’ but of my own verity & experience as a thinking & feeling human being, that I am impatient to avoid any like danger. A sentence in the Westminster Review speaks warmly of the work & promises an early “notice at large,”—& I am glad of this of course, as it comes next to the Edinburgh & Quarterly, in influential ability as a critical organ.
Now that I come down to reading as my chief occupation, you can scarcely fancy (or perhaps you can) what a weary stale & flat [2] occupation it comparatively seems to me. There is so much of active life in writing, that the passive reception of the ideas of other persons, is tame & uninteresting after it,—–and like drinking water after wine. Now I am afraid of sending you that Anacreontic figure—lest it should not quite redound to my respectability. Only I have felt my imprisonment more than usual, since the printing has been completed, & feel restless in my cage like a squirrel ..... a respectable squirrel!– But I write only to tell you of the books being at Eastnor if not at Worcester– And I remain dear Lady Margaret
affectionately yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. See letter 1706.
2. Cf. Hamlet, I, 2, 133.
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