1787. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 277–278.
[London]
Saturday. Decr 14 1844.
My dearest friend
If I have not written, there has been a great deal of thought of you through all my silence,—and I have been thankful to think from Arabel’s account as from your own, that if you continue to suffer pain & sleeplessness, there is every hope of its being a transient affection, .. and not at all like my affection for you. The weather is very hard to bear,—and nobody, I should fancy, can help feeling that they should feel better for thaw & sunshine instead of frost and east wind, supposing the power of bartering one for the other, to be within reach– And now I am going to give you Arabel’s opinion of the chair. At the Baker Street Bazaar [1] she found one which she considers suitable to you. It is not quite new, but is quite as good as new,—& from the fact of its not being actually so, you have it for four guineas, & not for six. It is handsome-looking & covered with leather, & has low arms, which will be no obstacle but an assistance to your rising up & sitting down. [2] All the easy chairs have arms of some kind—and although she saw a chair without them, it was inferior to the others, & too narrow in the seat for you. But what can be your objection, my dearest Mr Boyd, to the arms?– You will find the arms to be a comfort to you, to keep you warmer than you would otherwise be, & to assist you in moving. I venture to urge upon you the desirableness of trying the arms. Now do. I wish too that you would lose no time about the chair, but send for it directly. The comfort will be very great—& the advantage in other respects, still greater than the comfort.
I hope Arabel told you how well the poems are selling,—& how half the edition is sold already, after little more than three months. I agree with you that the Westminster Review article is inferior as a critique & a composition, although I thought it very kind. [3]
May God bless & keep you. To know that He blesses you, must always be a blessing to your most affectionate
Elibet.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 24 (a) Grove End Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: EBB-HSB, p. 271.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Located at no. 58 Baker Street, Portman Square, it housed, among other businesses, Madame Tussaud and Sons.
2. Cf. Lamentations 3:63.
3. For the text of this review, see pp. 374–378.
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