2500. EBB to Fanny Dowglass
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 182–183.
[London]
Thursday evening. [?23] [July 1846] [1]
Indeed, my dear friend, I will let you blame me for this silence– It has been full of thought if not of action,—& I have been confused & confounded by the coming & going, to & fro, of many relatives & friends, the ground being scarcely clear. We have had a houseful—& I, for my particular part, a heartful—I do not know when I shall cease to be giddy– When I am at rest for a moment, it seems as if I sate on the very edge of a thunder-cloud–
How happy I am to hear your story of yourself. May God bless you out of the Love, which, both for earth & Heaven, is best. That you should not suffer pain, makes me glad & thankful, & though you do not speak of being essentially better, I like to think that you will live still & have reason to thank God for life .... have reason, & see reason. When I remember how five years ago, I should have called it kind in anyone who would have killed me [2] … I learn to hope for others.
Now I will tell you as you affectionately enquire, a little of myself. You know my state was one of utter prostration in body & soul– The breaking of the vessel on the chest, which exhausted the body—the half breaking of the heart, which crushed the nervous system—the enforced emprisonment throughout the cold weather, which produced more weakness .. these things acting together, made me a ruin of a living being: & as nature attempted to retrieve herself, I was thrown back again by the winters– If a little was gained every summer, it was but so little—the snail in the arithmetic book being my precise type. Well—but still a little was gained—& last summer I was decidedly better. Then came last winter which as a winter wd have thrown me back again—& it was no winter at all: it was a miraculous season, which never touched me for any evil, though I was necessarily shut up in one room throughout it. And this summer, I am comparatively well—looking like myself—able to drive out, walk out—& my belief is that if I were in a warmer climate sheltered from the winters, I should be as well as ever I was. Of course therefore I think of it—though I was hindered last year, & dare not think aloud. Pisa has been especially recommended to me—& perhaps on some sunshiney day you & I may meet under the skies of Italy. As it is, drawn to you as I am, dearest friend, I am afraid to go to you– I never go anywhere– I am frightened of human faces in general. Then I should do you harm perhaps .. I cannot count on my courage– I have nerves like so many threads, & too much use for them, feeble as they are. Let me have your prayers & your affectionate thoughts—& if another note, how kind you will be. Tell me if I may send you the two volumes I published a year & more ago [3] —that is, tell me if you should not dislike it—to be sent on the condition that you do not speak of them again to me, unless for the purpose of setting me right in something? May I send them? People are telling me everyday that I look better than before I was ill—& I feel well—yet too much harrassed for one well or ill. Surely now enough is said of myself even for your goodness.
In the deepest sympathy I read all you told me of your state of mind—— Have I not entered into the secret of sorrow? But for me, with me, it was not so. It was crushing, prostration .. lying in the ashes– May God minister to all of us. What should you say to me if I told you (it is a confidence, & you will not repeat it) that I never knew the taste of happiness until the last year. Pray for me, dear Fanny. I love you for yourself & for another.
Your own affectionate
Ba.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to the “houseful” of “relatives & friends,” who were in London for the occasion of Arabella Hedley’s wedding on 4 August 1846.
2. An allusion to the death of Bro.
3. Poems (1844); present whereabouts unknown.
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