2371. RB to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 341–342.
[London]
Wednesday. [Postmark: 20 May 1846]
My Ba, I can just kneel down to you and be kissed,—I cannot do more, nor speak, nor thank you—and I seem to have no more chance of getting new love to give you,—all is given,—so I have said before, and must keep saying now—all of me is your very own.
________________________________________
My sister (whose engagement, and not mine, this was) [1] decides to act according to the letter of Mr Kenyon’s kind instructions, and keeps at home, on account of the rain– She is very subject to colds and sore-throat, which the least dampness underfoot is sure to produce in her. So I am not near you! You would not go, however,—I think, would not go,—to the Park gate as you conditionally promised. I do not, therefore, miss my flower-show, my “rose tree that beareth seven times seven”. [2] —But the other chance which your last letter apprises me of,—the visit of Mr Kenyon,—which, by going in time to him, I might perhaps make my own too—that, on a second thought, I determine to forego .. because it jeopardizes my Saturday, which will be worth so many, many such visits,—does it not? There is no precedent in our golden year for three visits taking place in a single week—not even in that end of October when all the doubt was about the voyage .. how I remember!
I shall be more with you than if in the presence of people before whom I may not say “Miss Barrett” with impunity while professing to talk of Miss .. I forget who! But “more with you”—I who am always with you!
Always with you in the spirit, always yearning to be with you in the body,—always, when with you, praying, as for the happiest of fortunes, that I may remain with you for ever– So may it be, prays your
own, own RB
Address: Miss Barrett, / 50. Wimpole St
Postmark: 8NT8 MY20 1846.
Docket, in EBB’s hand: 187.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 715–716.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. See letter 2362, in which RB mentioned going to a flower show with Sarianna “next Wednesday unless the day be rainy.”
2. Cf. Leviticus 25:8.
___________________
