768. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
An amended version of the text that appeared in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 290–291.
Torquay.
Saturday– [4 July 1840] [1]
So you were afraid of a conspiracy dear Mr Horne! Let me explain our innocency!– After my last note had gone to you I received a letter from Miss Mitford mentioning the annual for the first time; (the Messrs Finden having just made thr proposition)—to find out if I myself were alive enough to help her, & what my ‘advice’ was about Mr Horne—whether an application to him might be dared or not.
Immediately came the thought of your labors & of the moral tale among them .. “Do this for me, or past kindnesses are thrown away”. No! I [2] wd not ask you– That was certain! But then Miss Mitford need not be quite, altogether, so magnanimous, & I said in ‘my advice’ .. “Just ask! you can but ask—you will ask yourself this time”—telling her however how over-occupied I understood you to be.. to prevent the least pressing beyond a bare question, & also any disappointment on her own side afterwards– I am so glad you sent the “backwork”. It is more than my hope, & very very kind of you. I wd not have teazed you in any case–
The truth is that “annualizing” brings an important part of dear Miss Mitford’s income .. or to put the word in the sense which it assumes to her anxieties .. of her father’s support—he being eighty & subject to attacks which render medical expenses only too necessary. She works upon the very roads of literature, in heavy stone-breaking labor, for hire & his sake. “Composition is no pleasure to me”, said she to me once .. [‘]‘it is too forced & incessant—but I work for my father.” There never was a more womanly woman .. in the supreme womanliness of devotion.
I tell you this partly for the pleasure of telling it, & partly to make you glad of your past kindness. There never was one more womanly––or more instinct with generous sympathies in all things good & true. I love her very much—few in the world more––yet I have only seen her four times––& this in one week & three years ago in London– She can make anybody love her she pleases, & she pleased to make me.
I do hope you may know Miss Mitford some day.
But perhaps you will be satisfied today with my coming to an end quickly. That will be good luck enough for once–
Truly yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Have just been considering .. what an admirable preparation this “annualizing” will be to me, for the Greek Tragedy?? [3] The Chorus will have their thymele-attitudes [4] perfect!
You “think you see that I intend” not to go to London!! I wish my intention had any power. I wd intend most intently directly. As it is I do hold by the power of the hope of it—but the weakness is so great! Think of Mrs Orme being in Germany. I never heard she even thought of such a thing, until she was gone.
Publication: BC, 4, 290–291 (as [?27 June] [1840]).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Conjectural dating based on 4 July being the first Saturday following Horne’s letter of [30 June 1840] to which this is a reply; thereafter EBB was prostrated by Bro’s death.
2. Underscored twice.
3. This is the first recorded reference to the projected collaboration of EBB and Horne on “Psyche Apocalypté.”
4. In the ancient Greek theatre, the thymele was a Dionysian altar, near which the chorus was generally grouped.
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