3111. EBB to Camilla Toulmin Crosland
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 18, 216–217.
58, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square
Wednesday morning [15 September 1852] [1]
My dear Mrs. Crosland,
I reproach myself much in respect to you. I only hope, from your goodness, that you are more inclined to be indulgent to me than I am to myself.
The meaning of my silence has not, however, been “the bad thing about it.” I put off writing to you till I could have it in my power to fix a day for going to you, as you kindly proposed, and the press of our engagements not admitting of this, week after week I still waited, waited—and now my nurse has gone to visit her mother, and I have my child on my hands, with all the nursing, dressing, washing, and general state of imprisonment belonging to the privilege.
Will you—can you forgive me? Do you undertstand how the chains are heavy upon my hands and feet?
I have not been able to get down to Miss Mitford, though she has wished it and though I have wished it doubly.
My nurse returns at the end of next week; but I can’t answer for myself now, and had better say so. Is there no hope of seeing you here when you come to town? which may happen occasionally.
I heard from our friend Mrs. Ogilvy the other day, she seems quite well and happy, scheming vaguely about the Continent. By the way, a story of hers has been coming out of late in your periodical, [2] which I have made some ineffectual efforts to get a sight of. Is it very improper of me if I ask you to lend me the numbers which contain it? If so, don’t mind me. But if you have those numbers by you, and can send them by the Parcel Delivery Company [3] without inconvenience, I will return them to you carefully and thank you much besides.
Oh, and I have to thank you twice over for “Lydia,” [4] now I have read the book. May all our talents in England have such pure aims!
Most truly yours,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Text: Camilla Crosland, Landmarks of a Literary Life, 1820–1892 (London, 1893), pp. 234–236.
1. Dated by reference to EBB’s comment that Wilson would return “at the end of next week,” which is what she told Miss Mitford in letter 3110.
2. The Ladies’ Companion, to which Mrs. Crosland was a frequent contributor. Mrs. Ogilvy’s story, “Autobiography of Laura Studlegh,” was published in twelve chapters from January to August 1852. The final instalment contains chapters 11 and 12 (pp. 62–72). Chapter 11 begins with an epigraph from EBB’s “Cry of the Children”; chapter 12, with an epigraph from RB’s Pippa Passes.
3. The London Parcels’ Delivery Company (later the “s” and apostrophe were dropped) was founded in 1837 to fill a public need. The British postal service did not deliver parcels until 1883.
4. Lydia: A Woman’s Book (1852) by Mrs. Newton Crosland. The title-page features two quotations from EBB’s poetry.
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