Correspondence

2064.  EBB to RB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 125–126.

[London]

Tuesday. [14 October 1845] [1]

Will this note reach you at the ‘fatal hour’ [2]  .. or sooner? At any rate it is forced to ask you to take thursday for wednesday, inasmuch as Mr Kenyon in his exceeding kindness has put off his journey just for me, he says, because he saw me depressed about the decision, & wished to come & see me again tomorrow & talk the spirits up, I suppose. It is all so kind & good, that I cannot find a voice to grumble about the obligation it brings of writing thus!– And then, if you suffer from cold & influenza, it will be better for you not to come for another day, .. I think that, for comfort. Shall I hear how you are tonight, I wonder?– Dear Occy “turned the corner” the physician said, yesterday evening, &, although a little fluctuating today, remains on the whole considerably better. They were just in time to keep the fever from turning to typhus.

How fast you print your book, for it to be out on the first of november! Why it comes out suddenly like the sun. Mr Kenyon asked me if I had seen anything you were going to print,—& when I mentioned the second part of the ‘Duchess’ [3] & described how your perfect rhymes, perfectly new, & all clashing together as by natural attraction, had put me at once to shame & admiration, he began to praise the first part of the same poem (which I had heard him do before, by the way) & extolled it as one of your most striking productions.

And so until thursday! May God bless you–

& as the heart goes, ever yours–

I am glad for Tennyson, & glad for Keats. [4] It is well to be able to be glad about something—is it not?—about something out of ourselves. And (in myself) I shall be most glad, if I have a letter tonight– Shall I?

Address: Robert Browning Esqre / New Cross / Hatcham / Surrey.

Postmarks: 1845 OC15 8Mg8 A; 10FN10 OC15 1845 E.

Docket, in RB’s hand: 67.

Publication: RB-EBB, p. 235.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. Date provided by postmark.

2. i.e., in the first post of the day; see letter 2058.

3. EBB’s thoughts here are reflected in her critical notes on this poem; see Appendix IV, pp. 376–381.

4. See letter 2061, notes 2 and 3.

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