1952. RB to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 278.
[London]
Tuesday Morning. [Postmark: 24 June 1845]
(So my friend did not (in the spirit) see me write that first letter, on Friday, which was too good & true to send & met, five minutes after, its natural fate accordingly: then on Saturday I thought to take health by storm, and walked myself half dead all the morning—about Town too: last post-hour from this Thulé [1] of a suburb,—4 p.m. on Saturdays; next expedition of letters, 8, a.m., on Mondays;—and then my real letter set out with the others—and, it should seem, set at rest a “wonder whether thy friend’s questions deserved answering”—de-served—answer-ing–!)
Parenthetically so much– I want most, though, to tell you—(leaving out any slightest attempt at thanking you) that I am much better, quite well to day—that my Doctor has piloted me safely thro’ two or three illnesses, and knows all about me, I do think—and that he talks confidently of getting rid of all the symptoms complained of—and has made a good beginning if I may judge by to-day: as for going abroad, that is just the thing I most want to avoid, (for a reason not so hard to guess, perhaps, as why my letter was slow in arriving)[.]
So, till to-morrow,—my light thro’ the dark week. [2]
God ever bless you, dear friend!
RB
Address: Miss Barrett, / 50 Wimpole St.
Postmark: 3AN3 JU24 1845 E.
Docket, in EBB’s hand: 25.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 103–104.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. i.e., farthest limit possible, as referred to by the ancients (cf. Vergil, Georgics, I, 60, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough).
2. Cf. Psalm 112:4.
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