2033. EBB to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 85–86.
[London]
Wednesday Morning. [Postmark: 17 September 1845]
I write one word just to say that it is all over with Pisa,—which was a probable evil when I wrote last, & which I foresaw from the beginning—being a prophetess, you know. I cannot tell you now how it has all happened—only do not blame me, for I have kept my ground to the last, & only yield when Mr Kenyon & all the world see that there is no standing. I am ashamed almost of having put so much earnestness into a personal matter—I spoke face to face & quite firmly—so as to pass with my sisters for the “bravest person in the house” without contestation.
Sometimes it seems to me as if it could not end so—I mean, that the responsibility of such a negative must be re-considered .. & you see how Mr Kenyon writes to me. Still, as the matter lies, .. no Pisa!—— And, as I said before, my prophetic instincts are not likely to fail, such as they have been from the beginning.
If you wish to come, it must not be until saturday at soonest. I have a headache & am weary at heart with all this vexation—& besides there is no haste now: & when you do come, if you do, I will trust to you not to recur to one subject, which must lie where it fell .. must! I had begun to write to you on saturday, to say how I had forgotten to give you your mss which were lying ready for you .. the Hood poems– [1] Would it not be desirable that you made haste to see them through the press, & went abroad with your Roman friends [2] at once, to try to get rid of that uneasiness in the head? Do think of it—& more than think.
For me you are not to fancy me unwell– Only, not to be worn a little with the last week’s turmoil, were impossible—& Mr Kenyon said to me yesterday that he quite wondered how I could bear it at all, do anything reasonable at all, & confine my misdoings to sending letters addressed to him at Brighton, when he was at Dover! If anything changes, you shall hear from—
EBB.
Mr Kenyon returns to Dover immediately. His kindness is impotent in the case.
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / New Cross / Hatcham / Surrey.
Postmark: 3AN3 SP17 1845 K.
Docket, in RB’s hand: 53.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 201–202.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. EBB commented on these poems in letter 1978.
2. The Carduccis; see letters 2003 and 2005.
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