2998. EBB to Dinah Mulock
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 242–243.
138. Avenue des Champs Elysées. Paris–
January 21. [1852] [1]
I hear from England that you have dedicated a book to me with too kind & most touching words. [2] To thank you for such a proof of sympathy, to thank you from my heart, cannot surely be a wrong thing to do, it seems so natural & comes from so irresistible an impulse.
I read a book of yours once at Florence, [3] which first made [me] know you pleasantly—and afterwards (that was at Florence too) there came a piercing touch from a Hand in the air .. whether your’s also I cannot dare to guess .. which has preoccupied me a good deal since. [4]
If I speak to you in mysteries, forgive me. Let it be clear at least, that I am very happy to be grateful to you for the honor you have done me in your dedication, & that my husband, moved more, as he always is, by honor paid to me than to himself, thanks you beside. I will not keep back his thanks which are worth more than mine can be.
For the rest, we have, neither of us, seen the book yet, nor even read an exact copy of the words in question. Only the rumour of them appears to run that I am “not likely ever to see you.” And why am I never to see you, pray? Unlikelier pleasures have been granted to me, and I will not indeed lose hold of the hope of this pleasure. [5] Allow it to
Your always obliged
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Address: To the author of the “Head of the Family” / Care of Messrs Chapman & Hall / 193. Piccadilly.
Publication: LEBB, II, 44–45.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address; the only January in which the Brownings resided at 138 Avenue des Champs Élysées occurred in 1852.
2. The Head of the Family (1852) by Dinah Mulock carried the following dedication: “I dedicate this book to no personal friend, but to one who has for years been the good influence of my life. Nothing she knows, or ever may know of me: yet it pleases me to offer this—probably the last novel I shall write for some time—to a woman, the mere naming of whom includes and transcends all praise,—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” A copy inscribed to “Elizabeth Barrett Browning—from the Author. Feb 6th. 1852” sold as lot 947 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1687).
3. Probably The Ogilvies (1849), which EBB mentions to Mary Russell Mitford in a letter dated [30 July 1852] (ms at Wellesley).
4. An allusion to Miss Mulock’s poem to EBB, published the year before in The Athenæum; see letter 2909, note 3.
5. They met in July 1852 when the Brownings were next in London.
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