3353. EBB to Mary Brotherton

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 133–134.

43. Via Bocca di Leone.

Tuesday– [7 March 1854] [1]

My dear Mrs Brotherton

I try to propitiate you for my <sin> of keeping the ‘oracles’ [2] so long .. so shamefully long, let me say myself & save you the trouble .. by enclosing to you Mr Westwood’s letter– If there’s anything in it I ought not to show you, it will be a sin added to the rest– I grow desperate, you see.

I agree with him in disagreeing with you as to the phenomena in question being caused by any degree of morbid excitement in body or mind. I hold it incontestible that nothing which is’nt in us can come out of us, .. shake the bottle, ever so .. and if Greek is’nt in you, or was’nt in you, nervous agitation wont shake it out of you, I think. The case of languages spoken by somnambu<lists>

<…> [3]

case does not illustrate yours. I, for <my own> part, dont believe that a fever ever made a Hebrew scholar or a geologist, or an anatomist or an adept in any branch of learning. I dont believe that the fever did it—though an external & independent agency may have made use of a susceptibility produced by fever, in order to do it–

Have you ever asked questions, and had them answered on paper? Have you asked for instance who wrote? In the paper you sent me, the significance seems to gather force in expressing itself. Nothing can be more curious– I observe (did that strike you?) that the Syriac Eloi “my God,” (written in English characters as in the Gospels) is grouped with Domine .. & followed by Jupiter .. not in the vocative case though!

<…>

Oh yes—if you are <…> your book, I shall be gl<ad …> Is it necessary to say <…>

Surely the weather <…> into a true spring & <…>

Mr Westwood seems to me to have misunderstood one half at least of my gratitude to him for his good offices. His letter sounds as if I had thanked him very coldly—and indeed I did’nt mean anything so churlish.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: University of Texas.

1. Dating based on EBB’s reference to “your book,” presumably a copy of Mrs. Brotherton’s Poems, which she presented to EBB on 9 March 1854; see letter 3354, note 2.

2. i.e., Mrs. Brotherton’s automatic writings.

3. The top of the letter is torn away, and a quarter of the third page with the signature is missing, affecting text here and below.

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