1960. EBB to Charles Hemans

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 10, 284.

50 Wimpole Street

June 30. 1845

Dear Mr Hemans,

You must allow me to express without the usual form of a stranger, the sense I have of the kindness you have shown me, which has indeed deeply gratified & affected me .. as little of the sort could do more– It is much that a pleasure of mine should be associated with a Name, so pure & consecrated to my heart & fancy as a woman & a writer, .. & I thank you for all of it. [1] Certainly if it were possible for me in my present state of still feeble though improving health, to receive visitors, .. except my nearest friends, .. without losing the prospect of ever being stronger, .. I wd gladly obey this impulse which bids me receive you at once. As it is, however, I am constrained to entreat you to avoid, if you can, thinking me coldhearted, when I ask you to allow your proposed visit to be a thing deferred .. a thing hoped for .. until my prison doors perhaps may be rather wider open. [2]

And I must remain, dear Sir,

faithfully & thankfully yours

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: State University of New York at Buffalo.

1. Perhaps EBB is thanking him for a copy of his mother’s poetry, The Domestic Affections, and Other Poems (1844), which included an introduction by Charles Hemans; however, we have been unable to trace the present whereabouts of this volume.

2. A meeting eventually took place in Rome in 1854 at which time Charles Hemans presented his mother’s Commonplace Book to EBB (see Reconstruction, A1166).

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