356. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 219–220.
[Hope End]
[ca. October 1829] [1]
My dear Mr Boyd,
I am going to write only a few lines to tell you of the recovery of the books—of their having been safely restored to us on our way home yesterday, by a man working in the road. He had rescued them from a strolling Pedlar who would have carried them past the columns of Hercules [2] by this time, if our knight had not observed, “Them books belongs to some young ladies whom I knows”, & given him a sixpence into the bargain. So the “persuasive words & more persuasive bribe” [3] prevented my receiving the full reward of my carelessness,—but indeed, as it was, the retribution was severe enough, tho’ you were not. I acknowledge to you,—(now that we have our own property again, I may say so without making you very angry),—that I was more sorry about my loss than I was about yours—far more sorry!——
It was nearly dark when we got home, & Papa told me that I should have left Malvern earlier; but he was not angry. I forgot to mention that I could take to you only the one hen pheasant which I did take, as it was the only one in the house,—& it seemed vain to have recourse so early in the morning to Bro’s extempore shooting. The frost & snow last winter were better sportsmen than any of our most accomplished men of science can prove themselves to be this autumn. Witness the de-pheasanted covers!——
I enclose to you Mr Barker’s last note to me, which you wished to read,—and I will bring as soon as I possibly can, the illfated books which suffered so many ups & downs of life yesterday.
Ever affectionately yours
E B Barrett.
My love to Mrs Boyd. The letter of mine of which Mr Barker speaks is the one he asked me to write on the subject of Sir Uvedale Price.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 86–87.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The style of salutation places this letter in 1829; the reference to autumn suggests October.
2. The Pillars of Hercules marked the entrance to the Mediterranean (now Gibraltar and Ceuta) and were supposed by the ancients to mark the limits of the habitable world.
3. Cf. Pope’s “Persuasive Speech, and more persuasive Sighs” (The Iliad of Homer, 1718, XIV, 251).
___________________
