640. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 45–46.

50 Wimpole Street.

Wednesday morning. [June 1838] [1]

My dear friend,

Do not think me depraved in ingratitude for not sooner thanking you for the pleasure, made so much greater by the surprise, which your note of judgment gave me. The truth is that I have been very unwell, & delayed answering it immediately until the painful physical feeling went away to make room for the pleasurable moral one—and this I fancied it would do every hour, so that I might be able to tell you at ease all that was in my thoughts. The fancy was a vain one. The pain grew worse & worse, & Dr Chambers has been here for two successive days shaking his head as awfully as if it bore all Jupiter’s ambrosial curls,—& is to be here again today, but with I trust a less grave countenance, inasmuch as the leeches last night did their duty & I feel much better– God be thanked for the relief. But I am not yet as well as before this attack, & am still confined to my bed—and so you must rather imagine than read what I thought & felt in reading your wonderful note. Of course it pleased me very much, very very much—and I dare say, would have made me vain by this time, if it had not been for the opportune pain & the sight of Dr Chambers’s face!–

I sent a copy of my book to Nelly Bordman before I read your suggestion. I knew that her kind feeling for me would interest her in the sight of it.

Thank you once more, dear Mr Boyd! May all my critics be gentle after the pattern of your gentleness!

Believe me

affectionately yours

E B Barrett.

Arabel will try to go to visit you tomorrow—that is, if it shd be fine–

Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 3 Circus Road / St John’s Wood.

Publication: LEBB, I, 68–69.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Dated by Boyd’s “judgment” of The Seraphim.

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