397. EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 280.
Hope End.
Thursday. [27 January 1831] [1]
My dear Lady Margaret,
I have been delaying writing, that my note might be conveyed to you more satisfactorily than by the post. After all, my brother cannot call today at Eastnor; & I cannot & ought not, to wait any longer to thank you for your kind interest in us. I am indeed sorry for the cause of your not giving me the pleasure of seeing you here. Pray send me one line, if it can be written without inconvenience, to say how Lady Somers now is, & whether you have the comfort of perceiving a gradual change for the better in her health.
My sisters are well; & I myself am recovering the strength which I had lost,—& I was able to get down stairs two evenings ago, which is a sure sign of amendment! We have good accounts too from Papa– He has been absent from us nearly a month, but does not speak yet with any certainty of the period of his return. God’s will, dear Lady Margaret, is best in all things—how far better than our wills which would detain the loving & loved in our place of pain: or concenter all joy & peace in a place, by necessity no “abiding place”. With Him the night & day are both alike; and if it be His pleasure to work in the night as in the day,—by afflictions as well as by mercies,—why should those, who have been, or may be, chastened once or twice, or more than twice, say unto Him, “What doest Thou”? May He give me strength to forbear saying so,—even tho’ the past suffering be again & again made present with me.
I have some pleasant anticipations just now, about a promised visit of Mr Boyd’s in May. His family are then going to the sea on account of Miss Boyd’s health, which has not been good lately; so I have been trying, & with success, to entice him, from his solitude at Malvern, to two quiet rooms in this house. Is not this an excellent plan for one person, at least?
And now my dear Lady Margaret, my note is growing so fast into a letter, that I must think of sealing it in time. Do not forget my petition for a few words from you respecting Lady Somers, to whom my sister & I beg our kind regards which of course belong to you also.
Will you believe me to remain
Your affectionate
E B Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: James Hervey-Bathurst.
1. Elizabeth Moulton died on 29 December and EBB’s father left shortly thereafter for London. EBB speaks of his being gone “nearly a month.”
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