1746. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 201–203.
[London]
Saturday. Oct. 26 1844.
My dearest Mrs Martin
I am delighted that you have settled your plans, and am ready to agree that Dover will suit you excellently, if it has not too vehement breaths from the east;—but of course, you will see to this. Our friends the Mintos, have spent nearly a year at a time there, & like the place—and the nearness to the French coast & the constant communication must help to circulate one’s ideas & spirits, which are much the same things– I was amused at dear Mr Martin’s idea about my thinking of Hastings for myself—and I might have been humiliated. It is plain that he thinks me incapable of disinterested virtue. No—I am satisfied in being as I am,—plus a green door—& if I did not tell you of myself, it was because the subject is so obsolete that I touch on it very little with anybody. Certainly I am better, .. better than I was last year,—& better beyond any expectation which I had held on the previous years. The obstacle, is my weakness,—the constitution, I suppose, being thoroughly shaken & exhausted by the various attacks which have been endured—and I am often reminded of dear Dr Scully’s prophecy, that I “should be better but never well.” After my opiate & on this sofa, I often feel well—but any excitement or exertion forces the delusion on me. To walk from this sofa into Papa’s room, though with support, & two sittings down, is an exertion to me which I feel for hours afterwards—but a short time ago, I cd not do it at all,—& therefore I dwell on the good aspect of it. If I could have two summers together, I shd be another person, it seems to me,—& as it is, I am better & becoming better– Miss Martineau, on the other hand, laughs my gradual progress of the sort, to scorn. I heard from her the other day, & she can now walk five miles a day with ease, & declares herself “well.” I hope I may have her letter back from Mr Kenyon to whom I lent it (he is staying three days at Dover, on his way home from Paris—& he goes to Hastings for a week before he comes to London!) in time to show it to you– You wd be interested in reading it. She says that Mesmerism is “true to the utmost degree claimed for it, & that she means to avouch it.” One of her servants is a clairvoyante, & speaks awful mysteries of the soul & the hereafter, discriminating (says Miss Martineau) “between what she hears at church, & what is true.” [1]
How delighted I shall be to see you both! Oh yes—stay a few days in London. London, with all its visitation of fogs occasionally, is by no means a cold place, but the very contrary. I have scarcely been able to bear a fire a day through, yet– We will do you no harm for a few days, be sure.
Oh—how I am forgetting!– Yet it is never too late to thank you for your kindness in sending that letter, which was full of interest to us, & presents a subject of reasonable & honorable pride to the writer’s family. I do like to see a triumphant energy of character.
Most affectionately yours
EBB–
Think of my having lost Flush again—& recovered him! Otherwise you wd have heard from me before,—but his loss quite upset me for two days & nights. The same thieves took him away from our very door; & I had to pay another six pounds, besides I am ashamed to say how many tears. We had to bribe the thieves as usual. And they had the insolence to say at last, that they wd have him again at the earliest opportunity, & wd ask ten pounds for him next time. Ask Mr Martin if it is’nt intolerable—but dont tell Papa when you see him, because we kept the whole circumstances concealed from him for reasons I have no room to tell. He did not know that Flush was stolen at all.
Address: Mrs Martin / Colwall / near Malvern.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. See letter 1742.
___________________
