1316. EBB to Julia Martin
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 229–231.
[London]
July 8– 1843.
Thank you my dearest Mrs Martin for your kind sign of interest in the questioning note—altho’ I will not praise the stenography of it. I shall be as brief today as you .. not quite out of revenge, .. but because I have been writing to George & am the less prone to activities from having caught cold in an inscrutable manner, & being stiff & sore from head to foot & inclined to be a little feverish & irritable of nerves. No—it is not of the slightest consequence—I tell you the truth. But I would have written to you the day before yesterday if it had not been for this something between cramp & rheumatism which was rather unbearable at first, but yesterday was better, & is today better than better, & tomorrow will leave me quite well if I may prophecy. I only mention it lest you shd have upbraided me for not answering your note in a moment as it deserved to be answered. So dont put any nonsense into Georgie’s head, forgive me for beseeching you! I have been very well .. down stairs seven or eight times,—lying on the floor in Papa’s room, .. meditating the chair, which wd have amounted to more than a meditation except for this little contrariety– In a day or two more, if this cool warmth perseveres in serving me, & no Ariel refills me “with achës,” [1] I shall fulfil your kind wishes perhaps & be out—and so, no more about me!
Dearest Mrs Martin I am very sorry to hear of your increased anxiety lately about poor Mrs Hanford. Do write to me soon & at length, & tell me, if you can, that she is better & stronger.
As for dear little Sissy it is true that the bad symptoms are as Mr Martin scolded me for saying, & as I cant help saying notwithstanding, ‘suspended’ still—& her appetite & power of taking exercise remain undiminished. Still, she looks & is I fear, very ill .. “in a critical state” says her medical attendant, in opposition to the “dangerous state in which she was when he saw her first.” That was his report to uncle Hedley– Dear Bummy is said to be looking “remarkably well” (this is uncle Hedley’s own report) & in very good spirits—a better account than I expected to hear of her– And she is likely to remain through the winter at her new house in Lansdowne Place & has no lingering thought of a return to Frocester, which, you know, I have an obstinate prejudice against as a place of residence, whether poor Sissy is well or ill. Oh, I do believe you think me a Cockney, .. a metropolitan barbarian! But I persist in seeing no merit & no superior innocense in being shut up even in precincts of rose-trees, away from those great sources of human sympathy & occasions of mental elevation & instruction, without which, many natures grow narrow, many others gloomy .. & perhaps if the truth were known, very few prosper entirely. It is not that I who have always lived a good deal in solitude & live in it still more now, & love the country even painfully in my recollections of it, wd decry either one or the other—but solitude is most effective in a contrast—& if you do not break the bark you cannot bud the tree—and in short (not to be in long) I could write a dissertation which I will spare you, “about it & about it”. The best argument for the particular case, is that uncle James told me I shd be astonished to observe what a different being dear Bummy was at Cheltenham & at Frocester—revived, with brightened spirits & calmed nerves. I shd not be astonished because I forsaw it– She wants sympathy, without being aware that she wants it—& the “cold obstruction” [2] of that Frocester life is fatal to the life of her character, like frost to the geranium——and there are other objections besides.
Tell George to lend you .. nay, I think I will be generous & let him give you, .. although the author gave me the book,—the copy of the new epic ‘Orion’ which he has with him– You have probably observed the advertisement, & are properly instructed that Mr Horne the poet, who has sold three editions already at a farthing a copy, & is selling a fourth at a shilling, & is about to sell a fifth at half a crown, (on the precise principle of the aerial machine .. launching himself into popularity by a first impulse on the people) is my unknown friend, with whom I have corresponded these four years without having seen his face. Do you remember the beech-leaves sent to me from Epping forest? Yes, you must. Well, the sender is the poet—and the poem I think a very noble one, & I want you to think so too– So hereby I empower you to take it away from George & keep it for my sake .. if you will!
Dear Mr Martin was so kind as to come & see me as you commanded .. & I must tell you that I thought him looking so better than well that I was more than commonly glad to see him. Give my love to him—& join me in as much metropolitan-missionary-zeal as will bring you both to London for six months of the year. Oh I wish you wd come! Not that it is necessary for you!—but that it will be so good for us!
My ivy is growing; & I have green blinds against which there is an outcry! They say that I do it out of envy & for the equalization of complexions.
Ever your affecte Ba
Address: Mrs Martin / Colwall / near Ledbury / Herefordshire.
Publication: LEBB, I, 147–148 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The Tempest, I, 2, 370.
2. Measure for Measure, III, 1, 118.
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