1659. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 63–64.
[London]
Tuesday [23 July 1844] [1]
My dear Mr Horne I have this moment received your note. [2] I feel a little ashamed of myself,—& very sorry! Believe it of me! After all, .. the morbid disabilities I am under, are nearly as much of the mind as of the body; & perhaps they wd exist in the case of any one who had been so shut up & so crushed down, as I, in different ways, have been. Your plan may be the best,—& if you have time still, & will call here some time between three & five in some afternoon … why .. I promise not to make up my mind against seeing you. [3] In fact I will do it, if I can—& you must be under the engagement not to be angry with me, if I cant … & you will, at least, make friends with my sisters, who have every right to be angry with you as it is, seeing that you left off coming to see Papa, just because I asked you to see them. Oh, you need not deny it—for it was so, undeniably.
For the rest, it is so very kind of you to use such a word as “disappointment,” that I throw up my brief–
Ever & truly yours
EBB.
Address: R H Horne Esqr / 5 Fortess Terrace / Kentish Town.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. This letter is postmarked 24 July 1844, a Wednesday.
2. In response to EBB’s refusal to see him, expressed in letter 1655.
3. Despite EBB’s change of heart, Horne did not take advantage of this invitation, as she explained to Miss Mitford in letter 1671. In a letter to RB postmarked 4 December 1845, EBB said she clapped her hands when she felt the danger of coming face-to-face with Horne had passed. She did not meet Horne until 1851, when she and RB met him and his wife in London.
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