3289. EBB to Mary Tweedy

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 19, 344,

Casa Guidi.

Monday night. [Docket: 14 November 1853]

My dear Mrs Tweedy, [1]

I feel as if we were belying our feelings to you in going away as we are about to do tomorrow morning at nine, without even leaving a card at your door, to show that we thought of you in going. I have been hoping everyday to be able to get out for this purpose, & everyday it has proved too cold for my husband to let me take a step unnecessarily into the air– He, half in waiting for me & half with a sudden influx of business at the end, finds himself guilty to you in a like way. Will you forgive us, both of you, & “not punish us with hard thoughts,” [2] but continue to us those kind ones we have done so little to conciliate?–

May I send a kiss to the unseen babies whom really I wished to see?

Most truly yours

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Address: Mrs Tweedy. Continued in RB’s hand: (To the kind care of Mrs Shaw, / Villino Lustrini.)

Docket, in unidentified hand: Nov. 14th 1853.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. See letter 3286, note 9.

2. Cf. As You Like It, I, 2, 183–184.

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