1876. EBB to Ann Rachel Commeline
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 142–144.
50 Wimpole St.
[ca. April 1845] [1]
My dear Miss Commeline,
I do hope that you will allow me to appear to remember you as I have never ceased to do in reality and at a time when sympathy of friends is generally acceptable, to offer you mine as if I had some right of friendship to do so. [2] And I am encouraged the more to attempt this because I never shall forget that in the hour of the bitterest agony of my life, your brother [3] wrote me a letter which although I did not read it,—I was too ill and distracted, I was yet shown the outside of it some months afterwards & enabled to appreciate the sympathy fully. Such a kindness could not fail to keep alive in me (if the need of keeping alive were!) the memory of the various kindnesses received by me & mine from all your family nor fail to excite me to desire to impress on you my remembrance of you & my regard: and the interest with which I hear of your joys and sorrows whenever they are large enough to be seen from such a distance. Try to believe this of me dear Miss Commeline, yourself, and let your sisters & your brother believe it also. If sorrow in its reaction makes us think of our friends let my name come among the list of yours to you: and with it let the thought come that I am not the coldest and least sincere. May God bless & comfort you I say with a full heart knowing what afflictions like yours are & must be; but confident besides that “we know not what we do” [4] in weeping for the dearest. In our sorrows we see the rough side of the stuff—in our joys the smooth:—and who shall say that when the taffeta is turned the most silk may not be in the sorrows? It is true however that sorrows are heavy and that sometimes the conditions of life (which sorrows are) seem hard to us and overcoming—and I believe that much suffering is necessary before we come to learn that the world is a good place to live in and a good place to die in for even the most affectionate & sensitive.
How glad I should be to hear from you, some day when it is not burdensome for you to write at length & fully concerning all of you[—]of your sister Maria & of Laura & of your brother & of all your occupations & plans & whether it enters into your dreams not to say plans, ever to come to London, or to follow the track of your many neighbours across the seas—perhaps.
<…> [5]
Mr James Martin is looking well and likely to be restored altogether I hope by the continental journey. He & Mrs Martin were to embark at Folkestone last week and I was glad to perceive that she was less uneasy about him than she has been of late. They talked of their absence by weeks so it is by no means an exile. For ourselves we have the happiness of seeing our dear Papa so well, that I am almost justified in fancying happily that you would not think him altered. He has perpetual youth like the gods & I may make affidavit to your brother nevertheless that we never boiled him up to it. Also his spirits are good & his “step on the stair[”] so light as to comfort me for not being able to run up & down them myself. I am essentially better in health but remain weak & shattered and at the mercy of a breath of air through a crevice; and thus the unusually severe winter has left me somewhat lower than usual without surprising anybody. Henrietta & Arabel are quite well and at home. George on circuit always obliged by your proffered hospitality; and Charles John and Henry returning from a voyage to Alexandria in Papa’s own vessel the “Statira”. [6] I set you an imperfect example of egotism and hope that you will double my Is and wes, and kindly trust to me for being interested in yours.
<…> [7]
Tell your sister Marianne that I seldom see the new monthly magazine without remembering her good nature of the olden times, in sending me those numbers of it which constituted my only means of access, then, to the literature of to-day. How good-natured it was! I say to myself now gratefully.
May God bless you! that you may be happy is my cordial desire—and a selfish one of a lower order is that you may write to me soon and in the meantime I offer you the regards & sympathies of my Father & sisters—of all here whom you can remember and I remain myself (if you will let me)
Yours affectionately
E. B. Barrett.
Publication: LEBB, I, 240–242 (in part, as [February-March 1845]).
Source: Kenyon Typescript, British Library.
1. The date of this letter is conjecturally derived from two letters, no. 1863, in which EBB tells her brother George that the Martins are at Colwall, and no. 1892, in which EBB writes to Julia Martin in the Pyrenees.
2. EBB is sending condolences on the death of Miss Commeline’s mother, Ann Farmer Commeline, who died at Redmarley on 2 March 1845 at age 80.
3. The Rev. James Commeline, Jr. had followed his father as Rector of Redmarley after the latter’s death in 1837. Doubtless EBB alludes to a letter of condolence that James Jr. evidently sent when Bro died.
4. Cf. John 23:34.
5. Ellipses in the Kenyon Typescript indicate an apparent omission of an unknown amount of text.
7. Ellipses in the Kenyon Typescript indicate an apparent omission of an unknown amount of text.
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