Correspondence

1735.  EBB to Angela Owen

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 179.

50 Wimpole Street–

October 8th 1844.

My dearest Angela

I have been unwilling to approach you even with a sympathy, which might touch too roughly the sadness of your heart, [1] —and I knew well that you cd not think enough of me in the time of your affliction, to be able to miss me. But is it wrong, at last, to assure you of my affectionate thoughts & prayers? Can I be doing any harm by saying so, at last? Do not answer this my dearest Angela! Now if I thought you wd answer it, I would not write it. I write only on the condition & in the trust that my words may be received as true, unobtrusive heart-words. For the rest, I do not doubt that both yourself & dear Mr Owen are serenely satisfied, .. now that the natural anguish of the first stroke is softened, & that you have time to see the Hand behind the rod, .. and willing to be happy by means of God’s sorrow– There must be more sense of tenderness, I think, than of bitterness, in a stroke like yours,—and not only you cannot ‘grieve as those without hope,’ [2]  .. but you cannot grieve as those without joy–

Dear Clara has been kind to us in writing, and I send my love to her. Will she write & say how you are again?

May God bless you & Mr Owen, dear Angela,—may God give you the full sense of blessing for you & your’s!–

I remain

Your sincerely affectionate

Ba.

I hope you have the comfort of seeing dear Mrs Bayford quite well.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. The Owens’s second son, John Platt, died on 14 September 1844, at the age of 11, of an “abcess in the head,” according to the death certificate in the General Register Office.

2. Cf. I Thessalonians 4:13.

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