209. Edward Moulton-Barrett (brother) to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 213.
[London]
[Postmark: 5 March 1825]
My dearest Bazy
I am I must confess a little disappointed at not receiving your accustomed Saturday’s epistle this week but in consequence of the very melancholy strain you wrote in last week, and knowing you are so very busily engaged about the corrections of your poem [1] I conclude you realy cannot find time to scribble to me. I hope you are getting on more to your taste with your poem than your accounts last week expressed, for two reasons, first because I think it must be most truly diasppointing to you after all your exertions and industry, to fail in your most favorite scheme, of being—————— (you may guess the rest,) and secondly from a much more selfish motive, namely that you may not write so illhumoured and savage a letter as you sent me last week. I beg your pardon Bazy but realy your temper generally so sweet and calm, (upon again reading this sentence, the insertion of that little word “generally” seems very necessary.) was at the time you wrote to me last; most unaccountably ruffled. By the bye this prooves to me that you had a hand in a little trick that was played Sam, for that in consequence of being yourself very much out of humour you are determined to annoy every body else as much as possible, this is even more like you than making bad practical jokes which sam accuses you of, and I am now quite sure that it was you who had the kindness to send Sam a shilling instead of his sovereign. He desires me to thank you for your kindness, and in consideration of the trouble you have taken he sends you back the shilling with the utmost contempt, he says moreover he is convinced it [is] yours from the badness of the joke, and he adds that he does not know which is the worst your wit or your poetry, and that neither one nor the other is worth what you have had the impudence to send him. With this affect adieu I shall now leave you to your meditations, but pray let me hear from you soon, believe me
your ever affect
Brozy.——
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. An Essay on Mind.
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