1418. Richard Hengist Horne to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 20.
[London]
| Express | Tuesday Night [31 October 1843] [1] |
I have never mentioned that you were doing any part of this work—to any one.
I have just received a note from J. E. Reade, on a visit at the Highlands near Reading—he knows all about it. [2]
Your name being at the head of one of the substantive papers in the book, it would be best not to be known as assisting in its contents—anywhere.
You understand.
Great haste
Truly yours
dear Miss B
RHH–
P.S. Gently—softly—soto!– You cannot unsay it—reproach no one—be wise—be mute—adieu!
Two other Expresses go with this, with a view to stopping the human tongue.
Don Quixote. [3]
Address: Miss E. B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St / Cavendish Sqre.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 1 November 1843, the next day.
2. Horne apparently assumed that Miss Mitford was aware of EBB’s involvement in A New Spirit of the Age and had told her friend Reade of it during his stay with Merry near Reading. In the following letter, EBB denies having mentioned her collaboration.
3. This suggests that Horne equates the task of stopping gossip about EBB’s part in the book with Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills.
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