2573. RB to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 323–324.
[London]
Tuesday. 3. p.m. [Postmark: 1 September 1846]
Dearest, when your letter kept away, all this morning, I never once fancied you might be angry .. I knew you must feel the love which produced the fear. And I will lay to my heart the little, gentlest blame that there is, in the spirit which dictated it,—I know, my own Ba, your words have given me the right to doubt nothing from your generosity—but it is not the mere bidding .. no, at the thousandth repetition, .. which can make me help myself to all that treasure which you please to call mine: I shall perhaps get used to the generosity and readier to profit by it.
I have not time to write much: all is divinely kind of you, and I love you for forgiving me.
You could not leave at an early hour under those circumstances .. the moment I become aware of them, I fully see that.
Ah, but, Ba, am I so to blame for not taking your diamonds, while you disclaim a right over my pebbles even? May I “withdraw from the business”? &c &c
Kiss me, and do not say that again—and I will say you are “my own”, as I always say,—my very own! As for “sarcasms” and the rest—I shall hardly do other than despise what will never be said to me, for the best of reasons—except where is to be exception. I never objected to such miserable work as that—and the other day, my annoyance was not at anything which might be fancied, by Mr Kenyon or anybody else, but at what could not but be plainly seen—it was a fact, and not a fancy, that our visit was shortened &c &c
All which is foolish to think of. I will think of you and a better time.
You do not tell me how you are, Ba—and I left you with a headache. Will you tell me? And the post may come in earlier tomorrow,—at all events I will write at length .. not in this haste– And our day? When before have I been without a day, a fixed day, to look forward to?
Bless you, my dearest beloved–
Your own
RB
I am pretty well to-day—not too well– My mother is no better than usual; we blame the wind, with or without reason– See this scrawl! Could any thing make me write legibly, I wonder?
Address: Miss Barrett, / 50. Wimpole Street.
Postmark: 8NT8 SP1 1846 B.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 1029–30.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
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