1284. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 185.

[London]

Thursday. [?15] [June 1843] [1]

My very dear friend,

Arabel is out, & I ventured to open your note to her. Mary Hunter is not coming to us I am sorry to say: we expect two of our cousins, [2] & their time both of coming & staying, being uncertain, it is impossible for us to enter into any other engagement—also we had understood that Mary was to spend a part of these approaching holidays with some friends in London, who are not ourselves. If you are kind enough to ask her for any part of the time, I am the more certain of her being delighted, .. from an impression I have, that she was a little bit disappointed (no, not a little bit!) in the failure of the half-anticipated visit to you before. [3] You cannot please her better than by asking her–

Dearest Mr Boyd, this goes to you in too great a hurry to pass for a letter I have been meaning to write everyday–

A whole hall of Eblis [4] may be paved by my good intentions–

Ever your affectionate

EBB–

Mr Hunter wd like her going to you I think, I am almost sure—but I cant, you see, quite answer for that.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Scripps College.

1. Dated by the anticipated arrival of EBB’s cousins.

2. John and George Hedley. Writing to Miss Mitford on 19 June (letter 1292), EBB said they had arrived.

3. Probably that mentioned in letters 1114 and 1123.

4. In the Koran (ch. VII), the fallen angel, cast out for refusing to worship Adam.

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