1269. EBB to Fanny Dowglass
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 161–162.
[London]
[ca. June 1843] [1]
My dearest Fanny, Mrs Thomas Dowglass has kindly come to tell me that I may write a little note to you—and therefore I must write—because I want you to know that though absent I am present, [2] & that my affectionate thoughts remain nearer to you than you may be aware of. Dearest Fanny, she gives me a bad account of you—you are very ill, she says, & very weak! And all this time I have been hoping upon the hope received from Paris, that the change & the climate may have been the means of affecting some substantial & lasting good, .... I mean, what we call ‘good’, dear Fanny, .. for, that all real good is with you, in you & over you, I do not hope, knowing that it must be so!– Well—I am disappointed that my good has not happened to you—which proves my foolishness which you knew before!—and still I go on to think … “But this is the beginning of the warm season– She may be better presently”! May God bless you in any wise!– My note goes only to say how that aspiration is in my heart for you, & how faithfully & affectionately I must think of you as long as we two are together upon the earth, in for-showing of the full faithfulness & affectionateness (may it be so!) of our union in the eternal world. I seem, all this time, to have gone on loving you in the dark—without knowing where you were—without knowing how you were—yet knowing very well that I loved you & wishing all good to you from the Invisible! You are at Rome, it appears!—and I have for a moment, a vision of you & of the donkey you ride on, and of dear Mrs Dowglass with her tender smile!—and I dare not ask any questions, although I have a thousand fledged for flight—because asking a question wd be praying for a letter,—and I have a pre-sentiment that it wd be inconsiderate in me to venture such a petition! Altogether, I seem to see you in a dream—or a conjuror’s vision—as Ld Surrey saw the fair Geraldine [3] —not daring to speak, lest I break the charm!! So the words flow back on my heart. There, they are .. God bless you, dear Fanny!
You will care to hear that I am better: of that, I am very sure. I am better & stronger, & likely I think to be more so as the summer settles & advances. During the past winter I have been shut up as usual in my bedroom, doing my reading & writing after my old fashion .. but, when the weather settles, I mean to struggle for strength in the open air & a Bath chair,—& as my bad symptoms are in suspension, there seems a prospect of recovering some modest proportion of strength– At present I am in my solitude—receiving scarcely a visitor—yet more cheerful under the dispensations of “our Father”– And now that I am shut up, I look back & cry against myself for want of tender human sympathy in the days which are gone by. I strike myself with the rod of my solitude for my coldness of the past, towards society. Is not the heart of the Church somewhat narrow & unexpansive towards “all men”.? [4] But my fault was my own.
<But dear Fanny we cannot talk now as heretofore & I am bidden to write to you only a “little note” this being the close of it. I have called myself to your remembrance & assured you of my affection! That is enough.
Your & dear Mrs. D[owglass’]s
Ba> [5]
Docket, in hand of Fanny Dowglass: Note from Elizabeth Browning. / (then Miss Barrett,) / to F.J.D.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Dated by the stationery and handwriting, and by the internal reference to EBB’s going out in a chair, also mentioned in letters 1292 and 1339.
2. Cf. II Corinthians, 5:8.
3. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?–47), poet, was attracted to Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of the 9th Earl of Kildare, and she inspired “A Description and Praise of His Love Geraldine.” In The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), a mock-historical fantasy, Thomas Nashe (1567–1601) supplied an imaginary account of Surrey’s association with Geraldine, in which Cornelius Agrippa, the necromancer, showed Surrey her image in a magic mirror.
4. Matthew, 10:22.
5. This portion in angle brackets is cross-written on page one in Miss Dowglass’s hand, probably copied from the flap of the envelope, now missing.
___________________
