1806. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 6–7.
[London]
Saturday. [4 January 1845] [1]
My dearest friend
I have just received your note, after a good deal of anxiety which is not relieved by it– Do you know that you have written this note with all the obscurity which Elizabeth Barrett could put into a poem? I cant make out what you mean by “the thing being as you were told”— Do you mean the telling of Mr Jago or of Mr Giuseppe? [2] I have been anxious about you,—expecting to hear Mr Travers’s opinion [3] —& now I hear it, it is like Confucius to me—and I entreat of you, if Jane [4] cannot come, to write just a word of clear meaning & explanation.
Mr Jago’s account of you through Nelly Bordman, made me quite happy—only if he was right in his particular view, Mr G. has been so very wrong that I do not think you should retain him as a medical attendant.
My present comfort through the darkness, [5] is, that you feel yourself to be easier & better! May God increase all the good!——
You will understand me when I say briefly, in reference to the opinion asked from Papa & myself, that an oath of so grave a nature as the one described to & repeated by Arabel, should, according to our impression, be either kept, or absolved by the person to whom you made it. You shd write to that person, & state that you regret your oath & desire to be released from it. If the person have any honour at all, you will be released instantly, & then you may act freely. This is our opinion.
I am going to send you the New Quarterly, which, in an article on the ‘Poetesses of England,’ praises me very kindly, [6] —& also some American criticisms which may amuse you.
May God bless you– My thoughts are with you most affectionately–
Your Elibet.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24. (a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 274–275.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. This letter is postmarked 6 January, a Monday.
2. Matthew Giuseppi, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, was presumably the “Mr. Giuseppe” who attended the Barretts’ servant William when he had smallpox (see letter 588). Francis Robert Jago (d. 19 November 1862 at age 75) had previously provided a medical opinion to EBB (see no. 849).
3. Benjamin Travers (1783–1858) was, at this time, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons, surgeon-extraordinary to the Queen, and surgeon-in-ordinary to the Prince Consort. He was noted for his advancements in eye surgery.
4. The “faithful attendant Jane Miller the wife of Mr. William Miller of Kentish Town” as identified in Boyd’s will of 2 March 1848; she was named in the will as Boyd’s executrix and the legatee of the bulk of his estate.
5. Cf. Psalm 119:50.
6. EBB refers to Chorley’s review in The New Quarterly Review for January 1845; see letter 1804, notes 1 and 5.
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