460. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 43–45.
Hope End.
August 13th 1832.
My dearest friend,
It appears to me that I must have managed very badly to be so long without hearing from you,—for I think you would have written to me before today, if I had not asked you not to do so. And yet, how could I have done otherwise? We have expected to go every day for many days,—and on last Tuesday, Papa had actually fixed the following morning for our removal. But we begged him,—thro’ my aunt,—to allow us to remain with him until some more packing was done,—so he changed his mind & we are now dragging on day after day, not knowing how many hours of Hope End are left to us. After all I am afraid it will be necessary for him to remain a little while behind us,—as to break up his establishment here & pack up all the furniture, would, until we were gone, be impossible. But by staying longer than he intended us to stay, we shall have considerably abridged the time of his being by himself—& that is something gained; both for his comfort & ours.
Mathews and his men have been packing furniture, a whole fortnight,—and I suppose they will remain in the house at least another week. Five cartloads went to the warehouses on Saturday. Mathews says that by staying more than a day or two longer, we shall be in the way—therefore this is too certainly the last letter I shall write to you from Hope End,—and you may write to me,—if you are inclined to write to me,—at the end of this week or at the beginning of next week, directing your letter to the Post office Sidmouth, Devonshire. I will give you a more particular direction, afterwards.
With regard to your books, dear Mr Boyd, I hope you have not thought that in sending the large ones to Ledbury instead of to Sidmouth, I was pleasing myself. We have sent to Sidmouth only one box of books, & not a very large one, as Papa particularly desired us to take as few as we could. In this box, are a good many music books,—and all the lesson books, which take up much room, but are necessary for the children. I have sent fewer than I had occasion for,—& would have left Wolf behind, if they had not seen that I was sorry about it,—& found out that it would lie flat, & be very little in the way. Besides Wolf, I have sent Gregory, & the first volume of Heyne’s Homer, which you gave me [1] —and the first volume of Heyne’s Pindar—& the two plays of Æschylus which I have, edited by Blomfield,—and two volumes of Sophocles in 8vo—and six very little volumes of Euripides in duodecimo—a few duodecimo Latin books—my Hebrew & Greek Bibles—& your Select Passages & Agamemnon. That is nearly, if not quite all, besides your smaller books. The two folios of Chrysostom & two quartos of Dr Clarke, I have seen carefully packed with my other books,—& they will be placed at the Ledbury warehouse with Papa’s. He is packing his own, himself, with the assistance of the boys who dust them & fold them in paper & give them to him. Oh I do wish that all this painful confusion were over!– The noise of hammering, & of men walking up & down stairs, from morning till night—and dear Hope End looking so unlike the happy Hope End it used to be!– I sometimes sit at the window & wonder if it is a dream. But dreams are dull things to write about, & I must not tire you with mine.
David says of the unrighteous—“Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God”. [2] May it please God that the desolating changes which have fallen upon me in the course of the last four years, may have fallen not in vain—not without the increase of my fear of Him. In the course of those years, I have lost five relatives. [3] I was attached to four of them—& to have saved the lives of two, I would have laid down my own life & been happier in the sacrifice, than I am likely to be now. From other causes, too, my feelings have been pained! The last stroke—our removal for ever from our dear & happy home—is of course a heavy one,—but I know we ought not to murmur at it, & I hope we do not. <…> [4] Dearest Papa’s resolution & cheerfulness are our example & our support. I exert myself in mind & body as much as either will allow.
I did not mean to say a word to you of all this—but sometimes people cannot help saying more than they mean. We intend to be very happy at Sidmouth. Lady Margaret Cocks gave me an agreable account of it the other day. She is the only person of whom I have taken leave—& she was so kind & affectionate in her manner! You ought not to be severe upon her, indeed. Mrs Cliffe & Eliza are much distressed at the prospect of losing us,—& cannot make up their minds to pay us a parting visit. I am glad of it—such a visit would have been painful to everybody. The Martins & the Peytons have also written—they will not come,—& our more distant acquaintances, we could not admit. Therefore we shall see none of them again. I hope they may all like our successors here,—& that our successors here may not only like but love this place as much as we have loved it.
How often in the day do you walk round your garden? I wish you had some place to walk in, besides your garden,—for more extended exercise must be good for you, even if it is not necessary. I used to think when you were at Malvern that you did not walk enough, or far enough,—and I am sure I should think so now. Though you call Bath Hampton a village, I suppose it is only the fag end of the great town,—& that if you attempt to walk towards Bath, you get into Bath. That there should be no road the other way, is very unfortunate. I liked your last letter better than most of the letters which you have written to me since we parted. Continue to tell me more about yourself, & your publication. Why did you not send your essay with your translations? You disappointed me by not doing so. A very little attention would have removed all the “immorality,” [5] and preserved the innocence of the age,—and I should regret your losing an opportunity of publishing what I liked so much. If you have any difficulty about doing it, will you send it to me at Sidmouth, & let me weed it, & transcribe it, & return it to you? In the meantime the printer will have enough to do, in printing the translations,—& when he is ready for the essay, the essay will be ready for him. Do think about it. I will not say that I shall have pleasure in doing this for you, because you know that I shall. Give my best love to Mrs Boyd & Annie, who are, I hope, quite well. I did not think I could have written so much—yet you see it is written! Perhaps I may be able soon, to write to you more chearfully,—& then you will be better able to forgive me for writing too long letters to you sometimes. As you say nothing to the contrary, tho’ I have asked you about it twice or thrice, I am obliged to think that you do consider them “too long”.
Your affectionate friend
E B Barrett.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / Bath Hampton / Bath.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 190–193.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. See letter 403, note 1.
2. Psalms, 55:19.
3. Mary Moulton-Barrett, October 1828; her father’s first cousin, Elizabeth Sterling (née Barrett), April 1830; Elizabeth Moulton, December 1830; her cousin, John Butler (accidentally shot, aged 10, by his brother), April 1831; and Mary Clementina Moulton-Barrett, June 1831.
4. About half a line obliterated, apparently by EBB.
5. Underscored three times.
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