2285. EBB to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 12, 198–200.
[London]
Wednesday. [Postmark: 1 April 1846]
Dearest George, you are good & I am bad, & there’s an end ..... I hope, not of both of us. Everyday I have meant to write to you; but once when I was really inspired to do it, Henry brought a horse which he had to talk to you about .. & I retired before the cavalry.
By the way you see what we have been doing in India—winning a victory at the cost of blood & tears [1] —the world should be too wise by this time to pay so much too much for its whistle. Some of these days our “great Indian Empire” will stand up on its own legs, & make use of our own rope to scourge us to a distance. What right has England to an Indian empire? No more than the Duke of Sutherland, to his broad estates. [2] Wait a little, & we shall see it all arranged according to a better justice, on the small scale & the large.
Yesterday Arabel had a message from a Mrs Munro in Harley Street [3] who wanted to see her immediately. She went, expecting to see Jane: and there was Emma instead. She has come to stay throughout the summer .. in town & at Bushey—& of course Arabel is delighted.
And you have been making yourself as agreeable as a lawyer could, I understand, at the Bartons– [4] Rosa wrote ecstatically of a walk with you to the Herefordshire beacon, & of losing herself in a wood with you .. best of all.
A few days ago I had Mrs Jameson here—she came one day, & the next—& she gave me a beautiful etching of a St Cecilia lying dead .. just as she lies in marble at Rome before a high altar. [5] The lifelessness is exquisite in the arms & hands. Then .. let me see for other news—. I am going to receive for half an hour a Mrs Paine [6] who comes from Farnham for that purpose, & has been so affectionate in her letters that I cant say no to her when she entreats to see me. Living at a distance I shall not be interfered with much—it will be half an hour on friday .. & there, an end. Then I have been translating the parting of Hector & Andromache from the Iliad … [‘]‘with my usual modesty,” as Mr Kenyon says severely. Pope & Cowper are both as bad as can be, .. & old Homer laughs us all three to scorn, I know very well. Still, being asked to attempt it, I attempted it.
Today I shall go down to the drawingroom. The weather has been just cold enough to prevent my doing this for a week past,—but not cold enough to hurt anyone in the world .. even me– My dearest George, how do you get on? You know I do not praise you for writing voluminous letters or very communicative ones. Only you have been better than I. Dear George, I have a true affection & confident esteem for you in all your acts & thoughts, and I desire you always to bear this in your mind .. always & under all circumstances. Is it overgrave of me to say it so suddenly in the midst of apparent light speaking? Perhaps! yet I spoke suddenly, because suddenly my heart made me. May God bless you, dearest George—
Love your ever affectionate
Ba–
Oh—we have heard through the Bells, [7] of Paris– It was before Robin arrived. Uncle Hedley saw in the paper how his regiment was sent to India, but as Jane & they all were about to go to a ball, he deferred communicating the bad news. In the middle of the ball, up came an ingenious gentleman (very much at a loss for a subject) with a face of polite condolence .. “I am very sorry to hear, Mrs Hedley, that your son’s regiment must go to India”– Down she fell in a fainting fit!– Poor Jane– [8]
Address: George G M Barrett Esqre / Barrister at Law / Oxford Circuit.
Publication: B-GB, pp. 138–141.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. EBB is referring to the Battle of Sobraon, the decisive battle in the First Sikh War, which began in December 1845 and officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Lahore on 11 March 1846. The Times for 1 April 1846 announced that on 10 February the British army had defeated the Sikhs at Sobroan, with heavy losses on both sides: 10,000 Sikhs killed; 320 British killed and 2,063 wounded (pp. 5–6).
2. George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1786–1861), succeeded, in 1833, to the title and estates, which included the greater part of Sutherlandshire, the Bridgewater estates, the Stittenham estates, as well as vast estates at Trentham, Staffordshire, Wolverhampton, and Lilleshall in Shropshire.
3. Emma Monro (née Russell, sister of Sir William Russell of Charlton Park) had married Theodore Monro, son of Dr. Edward Thomas Monro, Harley Street, in April 1842. Her sister Jane Eliza married Theodore’s brother Henry the same day. Theodore Monro died the next year, shortly after their child was born in March. Emma subsequently married Peter John Margary in July 1847. The Russells, Sir William and his sister, were contemporary in age with EBB’s brothers and sisters, and they were often in each other’s company. Henrietta and Jane were especially close. The Monros had a residence at Bushey, sixteen miles northwest of London, in Hertfordshire.
4. Otherwise known as Barton Court, the home of Mrs. Charlotte Griffith and her daughter and son-in-law, Eliza and Nicholson Peyton, which was located 1½ miles from Hope End, about mid-way between Hope End and the Herefordshire Beacon, a summit of the Malvern Hills (1,114 ft.). Rosa was the Peyton’s seventh child and third daughter, Elizabeth Rosetta (1825–74).
6. Caroline Paine (née Newnham, 1822–1904) was from Farnham, Surrey. In 1841 she married John Manwaring Paine (1807–58), a landed proprietor and hop farmer. The Brownings visited the Paines at Farnham in 1852.
7. Henry Bell of Newbiggin House, Northumberland, and his wife Susanna Jane (née Mainwaring) were the parents of Susanna Maria, who had married Samuel Goodin Barrett in 1835. It was she who had brought EBB’s maid, Elizabeth Wilson, from Northumberland in 1844 (see letter 1585, notes 15 and 16).
8. Robert (“Robin”) Hedley (1826?–1912) had been commissioned on 29 September 1843 in the 32nd (The Cornwall) Regiment of Foot. On 3 April 1846 he was made a Lieutenant in the same regiment, and on 31 May 1846 he embarked for India.
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