1902. EBB to Lydia Sigourney
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 190–191.
50 Wimpole Street
May 1. 1845.
Dear Mrs Sigourney [1]
I cannot delay a reply, .. it rises to my lips as quickly as gratitude .. to the kind letter you have sent me. It is delightful to me to know that you have read my poetry with satisfaction, & that what was spoken from the fulness of the heart, has found a witness in the sensibility of yours. Your testimony is very welcome—your praise has made me very glad; & I gather courage from your voice, as from that of others, to endeavour more & more to justify your present indulgence by future work. In the meantime, I think gratefully, that you allow me to look to you as a friend, & to answer your enquiry, as friend to friend. And yet I have not much ‘history’ to tell you.
Poetry has been the life of my life as long as I can remember– I cannot remember when I cared less for it,—& continued illness & unusual affliction have not made me care less for it. I lived a very studious & secluded life, for the most part in the country, until about six years ago, when my health failed from a vessel yielding in the chest,—since when I have sometimes been worse & almost hopelessly worse, .. & sometimes better,—& for the last two years, gradually & essentially better. Indeed I begin to think that I am turned again towards life, & that some comparative degree of health may be restored to me. In the winter however I am forced to be a close prisoner,—& even in summer, my body recovers the necessary strength so slowly, that I am obliged to keep to the sofa & an invalid’s precautions, & think of walking across the room as other people do of climbing a mountain. And thus, although I live with my father & a large family of brothers & sisters in London, I scarcely see anybody– I might as well live in a desert .. but for the fountains of books on all sides of me. One or two persons indeed I see—besides my own family—and I have that sense of kindness, far & near, which is so full of comfort. Miss Mitford .. she is your friend I think .. sometimes comes to London in her generous affection, to spend a day with me—and Mr Kenyon, whose name may be familiar to you, is at once my cousin & dear friend. I may assure you that this dusky silent room has many pleasant thoughts in it.
And now it has a new one associated with Mrs Sigourney’s goodnature & sympathy. America has been kind & generous to me—& I have friends there, who, according to the world, would be but strangers,—but whom I know to be friends, by the signs both of their friendliness & of my thankfulness. I am delighted to put your name among them—your name already familiar to me as a reader, & now cordially accepted in another relation.
Very faithfully yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Address: Mrs Sigourney / Hartford / Connecticut / America.
Docket, on envelope, in Mrs. Sigourney’s hand: Ansd Nov 27.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Lydia Howard Sigourney (née Huntley, 1791–1865) was an American author and editor.
___________________
