Correspondence

325.  EBB to Ann Rachel Commeline

An amended version of the text that appeared in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 173–174.

Hope End

Monday [October 1828] [1]

My dear Miss Commeline, [2]

Thank you for the sympathy and interest which you have extended towards us in our heavy affliction. Even you cannot know all that we have lost, but God knows and it has pleased Him to take away the blessing that He gave. And all must be right since He doeth all! Indeed we did not foresee this great grief! if we had we could not have felt it less but I should not then have been denied the consolation of being with her at the last.

It is idle to speak now of such thoughts, and circumstances have unquestionably been rightly & mercifully ordered. We are all well & composed—poor papa supporting us by his own surpassing fortitude. It is an inexpressible comfort to me to witness his calmness.

I cannot say that we shall not be glad to see you but the weather is dreary and the distance long: and if you were to come, we might not be able to meet you & to speak to you with calmness. In that case you would receive a melancholy impression which I should like to spare you. Perhaps it would be better for you and less selfish in us, if we were to defer this meeting a little while longer—but do what you prefer doing! I can never forget the regard and esteem entertained for you by one whose tenderness & watchfulness I have felt every day and hour since she gave me that life which her loss embitters—whose memory is more precious to me than any earthly blessing left behind! I have written what is ungrateful and what I ought not to have written and what I ought not to feel and do not always feel but I did not just then remember that I had so much left to love.

What you say of her is very gratifying to me. The idea of possessing your regard dear Miss Commeline used to be very gratifying to her <***>

Publication: LEBB, I, 7–8 (in part).

Source: Kenyon Typescript, British Library.

1. Dated by reference to Mary Moulton-Barrett’s death.

2. Ann Rachel Commeline, the eldest daughter of James Commeline, Sr.

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