Correspondence

2470.  EBB to Julia Martin

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 131–132.

[London]

Tuesday. [Postmark: 7 July 1846]

So my dearest Mrs Martin you are quite angry with all of us & with me chiefly? Oh, you need not say no! I see it—I understand it—& shall therefore take up my own cause precisely as if I were an injured person. In the first place, dearest Mrs Martin, when you wrote to me (at last! ..) to say that we were both guilty correspondents, you should have spoken in the singular number: for I was not guilty at all, I beg to say, while you were on the continent. You were uncertain you said on going, where you should go & how long you should stay, & you promised to write & give me some sort of address—a promise never kept—& where was I to write to you? I heard for the first time from the Peytons, of your being at Pau, .. & then you were expected at home. So innocent I am——& because it is a pleasure rather rare, to make a sincere profession of innocence, I meant to write to you at least ten days ago .. & then, (believe me you will, without difficulty) the dreadful death of poor Mr Haydon the artist quite upset me, & made me disinclined to write a word beyond necessary ones. I thank God that I never saw him——poor gifted Haydon—but, a year & a half ago, we had a correspondence which lasted through several months & was very frequent while it lasted. Then it was dropped .. & only a few days before the event, he wrote three or four notes to me to ask me to take charge of some papers & pictures .. which I acceded to as once I had done before– He was constantly in pecuniary difficulty & in apprehension of the siezure of goods,—& nothing of fear suggested itself to my mind .. nothing. The shock was very great– Oh, I do not write to you to write of this—— Only I would have you understand the real case, & that it is not an excuse, & that it was natural for me to be shaken a good deal. No artist is left behind with equal largeness of poetical conception! If the hand had always obeyed the soul, he would have been a genius of the first order. As it was, he lived on the slope of greatness, & could not be stedfast & calm. His life was one long agony of self[-]assertion. Poor, poor Haydon. See how the world treats those who try too openly for its gratitude! “Tom Thumb for ever,” over the heads of the giants!–

So you heard that I was quite well?—dont believe everything you hear! That I am really in a way to be well, if I could have such sunshine as we have been burning in lately, & a fair field of peace besides. Generally, I am able to go out everyday, either walking or in the carriage—‘walking’ means as far as Queen Anne’s Street. The wonderful winter did not cast me down, & the hot summer helps me up higher. Now, to keep in the sun, is the problem to solve .. & if I can do it, I shall be “as well as anybody”—if I cant, as ill as ever. Which is the resumé of me, without a word more.

Dear Bummy arrived on saturday with Arlette, & is looking much better than I expected to see her—but she is in very low spirits I think .. which however, we did expect. She stays with us until after the marriage perhaps, & then talks of visiting Mrs Davidson [1] in the north– The Hedleys arrive on thursday—& Arabella is to change her name on the last week of July or the first week of august. Notwithstanding your praise of the bridegroom, I was a little startled & half sorry at first, to hear of him—on account of the other He, so lately left behind: but one ought’nt to be too romantic in these days, & a sensible man who loves a woman, should not be disdained, I suppose, even on the cross-roads. You call him, I think, a sensible man. And you do not mean a dull man by that?

If the flowers have left your garden, it is because we had the summer in spring, & have the autumn in July as a matter of course. Miss Mitford, whom I saw two days ago, was moaning piteously—for the heavens only knew what was to come after the autumnal hollyhocks she had, .. all blowing!– How are you both, in health & spirits? Write to me more in detail. Can you read this? I write with a sort of walking stick. With love to Mr Martin.

your ever affectionate

Ba

I am sure Bummy wd send her love to you if she knew I was writing—but they are all out in the carriage. Her final plans seem uncertain quite. Oh, dear Mrs Martin—you do not seriously think that I meant to neglect .. forget you? You know me better!——

Address: Mrs Martin / Colwall / Gt Malvern.

Publication: LEBB, I, 277–279 (in part, as [end of June 1846]).

Manuscript: The Karpeles Manuscript Library and Wellesley College.

1. Mrs. Davidson of Ridley Hall, Northumberland, a friend of EBB’s aunt.

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