1868. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 130–131.
[London]
Wednesday. [19 March 1845] [1]
I have just received this letter from Mrs Coleridge dearest Mr Kenyon & send it to you that you may see how kind it is,—& you know you can let me have it back when you are so kind as to try to see me again, .. if I may aspire to so much in this world of east winds– I am almost tired of it. Shall we ever recover into warmth, do you think? [2]
In the meantime, may I take the attitude of a suppliant before you, & petition you, if you are a governor or know a governor, (Mr Curteis?) of Christchurch, to give or procure a vote for Mrs Orme’s grandchild .. Robson.? [3] You were her patron with vain generosity in the matter of the naval orphan asylum—will you be availingly so now? The boy is quick & intelligent—his father, dead—his mother struggling on in circumstances which are not likely to admit of his being liberally educated by the ordinary means. She & her mother, Mrs Orme, keep a school themselves at Kensington. Well—I need not write any more. If you can do it, I know you will.
In spite of all my grumbling I am better today .. somewhat .. & more hopeful—& ever affectionately yours
EBB.
Thanks for Dr Forbes [4] —but let him call the magnetic phenomena hysteria twenty times, & he does not diminish the wonder by the familiar name. It is a mere change on the sense. What will Miss Martineau say in the Athenæum. [5] It is fact against fact—is’nt it?—& the appeal is to the character of the witnesses. For my part, I keep, so far, to the Martineau side of the question.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to EBB’s letter to Mrs. Coleridge, no. 1867.
2. See letters 1846 and 1866.
3. Frederick Abercrombie Hope Robson (1835–74), son of Thomas Charles Robson and Maria Margaret (née Orme).
4. Sir John Forbes (1787–1861) was a physician who had written letters in The Athenæum and The Medical Gazette, which were published in 1845 as Illustrations of Modern Mesmerism from Personal Investigation. A statement by Dr. Forbes regarding Miss Martineau’s case had appeared in The Athenæum for 15 March 1845, the previous Saturday (no. 907, pp. 268–269).
5. Miss Martineau’s reply to statements by Dr. Forbes, Dr. Brown, and Headlam Greenhow appeared in The Athenæum for 22 March 1845 (no. 908, pp. 290–291).
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