2834. EBB to Henrietta Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 71–72.
[Florence]
4th March. [1850] [1]
My beloved Henrietta, I must begin a little note to you today, [2] to prove that it does not come & go like another day, in spite of the width of earth & sea that separates us. May God bless & keep you, & contrive a light for you which perhaps you do not see yet, but which may burn steadily & brightly on to the ‘perfect Day’. I think of you & love you with the force of my mind & heart, & cling to the hope that all will go well with you & yours– May God bless you! Have you thought of the suggestion about the agency? Have you ever thought of foreign consulships? among other objects? Some of them are excellent—& the qualifications are not difficult—not much more, I believe, than respectability of station & good character. Perhaps however the agency wd be more surely within reach. Consider it. Keep up your spirits, & stir up Surtees’s energies. All these disappointments are disheartening indeed; but we must not be disheartened,—because the world is wide, & Providence, merciful, and a great deal is always to be done where one ‘nobly dares.’ [3] It is a deep pain to me to think of your anxieties, and of Papa, and of Arabel—all is full of pain. I give no advice, because nobody ought to give advice on such subjects. Only one thing is clear that you should both be cheerful & energetic because otherwise you are clipping your own hopes of happiness. Another year may set everything right—I pray God it may–
Dear Mrs Martin spoke of you with the greatest interest when she wrote to me some time ago, and said that she respected your motives & conscientiousness too much to interfere with your present conclusions– I wrote to her, not long since, & hope to hear again. As to Bummy, she has given me up,—my two letters remaining unanswered—one to Tunbridge Wells, & one to Kinnersley. Is Uncle James quite restored to his usual power of enjoying life? You only give me general accounts. Let me hear about Aunt Fanny,—& more particularly, about Louisa Carmichael. If you see Sophia Cottrell, she will tell you, perhaps, that Mr Lee [4] … is going to bring his two children to Florence to place them under Mrs Gordon’s care! I confess I wonder, how he can bear to part with them, unless he means to live here himself, which, with his hatred for Italy, is not very probable.—
May God bless you my own dearest Henrietta,
prays your Ba–
Miss Barrett.
Publication: TTUL, pp. 75–77.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Year provided by this letter’s enclosure in letter 2836.
2. Henrietta’s 41st birthday.
3. Cf. William Broome, “Courage in Love” (1743), line 27.
4. i.e., James Peard Ley, widower of Sophia Cottrell’s sister Louisa who had died in November 1848.
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