718. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 209–211.
Beacon Terrace, Torquay.
Nov 24th [1839] [1]
My dearest Mrs Martin,
Henrietta shall not write today, whatever she may wish to do. I felt in reading your unreproaching letter to her, as self-reproachful as anybody could with a great deal of innocense (in the way of the world) to fall back upon. I felt sorry very sorry not to have written to you something sooner, which was a possible thing—although, since the day of my receiving your welcome letter, I have written scarcely at all nor that little, without much exertion. Had it been with me as usual, be sure that you shd not have had any silence to complain of. Henrietta knew I wished to write, & felt I suppose unwilling to take my place when my filling it myself before long, appeared possible. A long story—& not as entertaining as Mother Hubbard. But I wd rather tire you than leave you under any wrong impression, where my regard & thankfulness to you dearest Mrs Martin are concerned.
To reply to your kind anxiety about me, I may call myself decidedly better than I have been. Since the 1st of October I have not been out of bed—except just for an hour a day, when I am lifted to the sofa, with the bare permission of my physician—who tells me that it is so much easier to make me worse than better, that he dares not permit anything like exposure or further exertion. I like him (Dr Scully) very much—& although he evidently thinks my case in the highest degree precarious, yet knowing how much I bore last winter & understanding from him that the worst tubercular symptoms have not actually appeared, I am willing to think it may be God’s will to keep me here still longer. I wd willingly stay, if it were only for the sake of that tender affection of my beloved family which it so deeply affects me to consider. Dearest Papa is with us now—to my great comfort & joy! & looking very well!—& astonishing everybody with his eternal youthfulness! Bro & Henrietta & Arabel besides, I can count as companions—& then there is dear Bummy!—— We are fixed at Torquay for the winter—that is, until the end of May: and after that, if I have any will or power & am alive to exercise either, I do trust & hope to go away. The death of my kind friend Dr Barry was, as you supposed a great grief & shock to me. How cd it be otherwise, after his daily kindness to me for a year? And then his young wife & child—& the rapidity (a three weeks illness) with which he was hurried away from the energies & toils & honors of professional life to the stilness of that death!—— ‘God’s will’ is the only answer to the mystery of the world’s afflictions.
And this reminds me of the poor Ricardos! & the terrible grief which has fallen upon them. [2] If you hear how Mrs Ricardo—indeed how they both bear up against it—do not forget to tell us in your letters.
I like so much to hear everything about you, & of the walks which you cant take as well as of those which you can. Our weather has kept pace as to wet, with yours.– Did you see Georgie gazetted “barrister at law” of the Inner Temple? My imagination has all gone to imaging him in a wig, for the last week.
Dont fancy me worse than I am—or that this bed-keeping is the result of a gradual sinking. It is not so. A feverish attack prostrated me on the second of October—& such will leave their effects—and Dr Scully is so afraid of leading me into danger by saying, “You may get up & dress as usual”—you shd not be surprised if (in virtue of being the senior Torquay physician & correspondingly prudent) he left me in this durance vile for a great part of the winter. I am decidedly better than I was a month ago, really & truly.
May God bless you dearest Mrs Martin. My best & kindest regards to Mr Martin. Henrietta desires me to promise for her, a letter to Colwall soon, but I think that one from Colwall shd come first. May God bless you! Bro’s fancy just now is painting in water colours & he performs many sketches. Do you ever in yr dreams of universal benevolence dream of travelling into Devonshire?
Love your
affectionate Ba.
found guilty of egotism & stupidity “by this sign” [3] & at once!
Publication: LEBB, I, 75–77 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Year determined by reference to the death of Dr. Barry.
2. Osman Ricardo and his wife were neighbours of the Martins, known to the Moulton-Barretts from their Hope End days. Mrs. Martin had presumably informed EBB of the death of their niece Mary in the spring of 1839.
3. According to legend, Constantine the Great had a vision in which a cross appeared to him in the sky; it bore the words “in hoc signo vinces” (“by this sign shalt thou conquer”).
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