Correspondence

2038.  EBB to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 90–91.

[London]

Friday morning. [Postmark: 19 September 1845]

It is not “misunderstanding” you to know you to be the most generous & loyal of all in the world—you overwhelm me with your generosity— only while you see from above & I from below, we cannot see the same thing in the same light. Moreover, if we did, I should be more beneath you in one sense, than I am– Do me the justice of remembering this whenever you recur in thought to this subject which ends here in the words of it.

I began to write last saturday to thank you for all the delight, I had had in Shelley, though you beguiled me about the pencil marks which are few– Besides the translations, some of the original poems were not in my copy & were, so, quite new to me. ‘Marianne’s Dream’ [1] I had been curious about to no end—I only know it now.——

On monday at the usual hour. As to coming twice into town on saturday, that would have been quite foolish if it had been possible. Dearest friend,

I am yours EBB.

Address: Robert Browning Esqre / New Cross / Hatcham / Surrey.

Postmark: PD 8NT SP19 1845 B.

Dockets, in RB’s hand: 56.; + Monday Sepr 22, / 3–4½ p.m. [19].

Publication: RB-EBB, p. 207–208.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Shelley’s poem, composed at Marlow in 1817, was published in Leigh Hunt’s Literary Pocket-Book (1819) and later reprinted in Posthumous Poems (1824). RB apparently lent his copy of the latter to EBB. It sold as lot 1079 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A2115).

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