Correspondence

449.  EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 16.

Hope End

Friday. [ca. May 1832] [1]

What Eliza meant & did, she meant & did kindly & like herself,—but I am sorry that anyone should have addressed you on the subject of living near us, with “earnest entreaties”. Either you wished it—and then they would have been unnecessary,—or you did not—& then they would have been vain. I think I said before her, that if you did not wish it at all, I did not wish it. I would have done anything, & made any sacrifice to obtain the end of your living near us– I would do anything,—I would make any sacrifice now, to obtain that end—but you will forgive me for saying, that a concession wrung from Mr Boyd by the entreaties of another person, could not have much value in my eyes.

Before I received your letter I had thought of taking Bothe’s edition [2] with me, the next time I went to see you, because I found in it the fragment for which we looked in vain, in Scholefield’s. In spite of Bothe’s opinion which estimates it as being more worthy of Clemens [3] than of Æschylus, I think it is very fine.

I mean to write out the ms notes here, & by that means save all the turning over of leaves which would waste a good deal of time at Ruby Cottage. I am glad that you told me to do it for you.

Ever yours affectionately

E B Barrett.

Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / Ruby Cottage / Malvern Wells.

Publication: EBB-HSB, p. 167.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. The lease of Ruby Cottage was to expire on 19 May, and the Boyds were again debating their next location. The reference to Eliza Cliffe’s suggestion that they remain close to the Barretts supplies the probable date of the letter.

2. See Reconstruction, A11.

3. Clemens Alexandrinus (fl. 2nd century A.D.). He was one of the poets discussed by EBB in “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets.”

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