2772. EBB to William Wetmore Story

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 15, 220.

Palazzo Guidi.

Febr 5. [1849] [1]

Dear Mr Story

I scarcely excuse to myself (may I to you?) the delay in thanking you for the gift of your volume of poems, [2] by my desire to return “Angela” [3] by the same occasion. At last I do thank you, we both thank you, for this kindness done, & this pleasure given, .. through verses—full of noble & true instincts, & touched everywhere with the poetical sense of Beauty.

Mrs Marsh has not charmed us much in the book we return, but it is nevertheless an interesting story, .. though “an old woman’s tale rather than an old man’s,” says my husband.

We unite in thanks & regards to Mrs Story & yourself,—

& I remain your obliged

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Publication: Isabel C. Clarke, Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Portrait (London, [1929]), pp. 299–300.

Source: Transcript in editors’ file.

1. Year determined by the formal tone of this letter, placing it early in the Brownings’ friendship with the Storys. Also, after Pen’s birth in March 1849, EBB, except in two instances, discontinued using “Palazzo Guidi” in her return address in favour of “Casa Guidi.”

2. William Wetmore Story, Poems (Boston, 1847).

3. Angela (1848), by Anne Marsh (née Caldwell, 1791–1874), a popular novelist who had earlier published Two Old Men’s Tales (1834).

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