1992. EBB to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 17–18.
[London]
Friday– [Postmark: 8 August 1845] [1]
It is very kind to send these flowers—too kind—why are they sent? and without one single word .. which is not too kind certainly. I looked down into the heart of the roses & turned the carnations over & over to the peril of their leaves, & in vain! Not a word do I deserve today, I suppose! And yet if I dont, I dont deserve the flowers either. There should have been an equal justice done to my demerits, O Zeus with the scales!– [2]
After all I do thank you for these flowers—& they are beautiful—& they came just in a right current of time, just when I wanted them, or something like them—so I confess that humbly, & do thank you, at last, rather as I ought to do. Only you ought not to give away all the flowers of your garden to me; & your sister thinks so, be sure—if as silently as you sent them.
Now I shall not write any more, not having been written to. What with the wednesday’s flowers & these, you may think how I in this room, look down on the gardens of Damascus, let your Jew say what he pleases of them [3] —& the wednesday’s flowers are as fresh & beautiful, I must explain, as to new ones– They were quite supererogatory .. the new ones .. in the sense of being flowers– Now, the sense of what I am writing seems questionable,—does it not?—at least, more so, than the nonsense of it.
Not a word—even under the little blue flowers!!!–
EBB–
Address: Robert Browning Esqre / New Cross / Hatcham / Surrey.
Postmark: 1845 AU8 8Mg8 A.
Docket, in RB’s hand: 38.
Publication: RB-EBB, pp. 147–148.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. By comparing the postmarks and texts of this and the following letter, it is apparent that they were written in the order they are presented, although RB’s dockets denote that they were received in reverse order.
2. Cf. Iliad, XXII, 209.
3. RB has interpolated above the line: “(R[abbi]. Benjamin of Tudela)” the twelfth-century author of Travels Through Europe, Asia and Africa. This volume was sold as lot 381 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A194). His description of Damascus begins: “This place is very large and handsome, enclosed by a wall and surrounded by a beautiful country, which in a circuit of fifteen miles presents the richest gardens and orchards, in such quantity and beauty as to be without equal upon earth” (The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, ed. A. Asher, 1840–41, I, 83–84).
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