1871. EBB to John Kenyon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 136.

[London]

Thursday. [20 March 1845] [1]

What Mrs Coleridge says of ‘pompous letters’ made me think not of her’s—but of mine—which had left my hands some hours before. I assure you my conscience said just so .. “If she says it of herself, what will she say of me?–[”]

You are too kind, for the rest, my dearest cousin—& the weather is softening as you observe,—& I send back Dr Forbes, [2] & will keep the Martineau book [3] a few days if I may–

Ever affectionately yours

EBB.

Mr Tait invites me to the Edinburgh Tales, [4] by this day’s post—but it is not in my way I think–

Address: John Kenyon Esqre

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Dated by letter 1868.

2. See letter 1868, note 4.

3. Taken to be a reference to a volume by James Martineau, Harriet Martineau’s brother, who had written numerous works by this time.

4. A collection of stories chiefly by Christian Isobel Johnstone (1781–1857). Mrs. Johnstone had cooperated with the publisher, William Tait (1793–1864), since the incorporation of Johnstone’s Magazine with Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1834. Other contributors to The Edinburgh Tales included Miss Mitford, Carlyle, William and Mary Howitt and Mrs. Gore. The stories were issued in weekly numbers and monthly parts, and were collected in three volumes (1845–46).

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