2047. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 102–103.
50 Wimpole Street
September 29. 1845
Do let me hear from you, dear Mr Horne, & quickly, as my foot is in the air .. balanced on the probability of a departure from England, .. for some land of the sun yet in the clouds .. Italy perhaps, Madeira possibly .. there to finish my recovery, or rather to prevent my yearly rechûte [1] in the wintry cold——so let me hear from you quickly. It seems long since I have heard from you—& I listen in vain for your Ballad book [2] & for other pleasant sounds of you which always must be three times welcome to me. I am likely to go very soon if at all—the uncertainty is dominant—& I have been long & continue still in great vexation & perplexity from this doubtfulness from painful causes. If I go to Italy it will be by sea—& high authorities among the doctors promise me an absolute restoration as a consequence of it—& I myself have great courage & hope when I do not look beyond myself– I have been drinking life at the sun all this summer—(& that is why the fountains of it have seemed so dry to you & the rest of the world!) but, though in improved health & courage, I am sometimes a very Jaques for melancholy, [3] & go moralizing into a thousand similes half the uses of the day. Let me know .. will you? .. when the ballad-book comes out, & how you are, & what you are doing most just now. Mr Mathews has sent me his ‘Abel’ [4] – Do you know anyone who will review it with a justice leaning to mercy’s side? [5] I wish I could do something for it, as the writer is anxious for the fate of it here in England, & has been kind to me. Miss Mitford complains (just as I do) of not hearing from you. She proposed kindly coming to see me before I left England, but I have no spirits just now to make farewells of. When I set up my Republic against Plato’s, nobody shall say goodbye in it—except the “good haters” [6] one to another.
Now I do hope to hear of your prosperity as soon as possible. Is your American edition of Orion out, as Mr Poe announced it? [7]
Always believe me dear Mr Horne
Faithfully & gratefully yours
EBB.
Address: R H Horne Esqre / Hill Side / Fitzroy Park / Highgate.
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 176–179.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. “Relapse.”
2. Horne’s Ballad Romances would not be published for another three months; see letter 1989, note 2.
3. The lugubrious lord in As You Like It.
5. Perhaps an allusion to Portia’s “mercy speech” in Act IV, scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice, particularly line 197.
6. Dr. Johnson said that Bathurst “was a man to my very heart’s content: he hated a fool, he hated a rogue, and he hated a whig; he was a very good hater” (Anecdotes of the Late Dr. Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 1768, p. 83).
7. We have been unable to identify an edition of Orion published in America during this period.
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