3532. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 21, 103–105.
[Florence]
[ca. 11] March [1855] [1]
My beloved Henrietta how sorry I am for you. [2] And how sorry I am for me & all of us who have to thank [sic] of your having suffered in vain .. as far as the obvious result goes. Indeed these things always must seem very sad to the sufferer! I have no doubt that you were overworked in London both as to body & heart—& then, from Arabel’s account (helped by your own) you were as imprudent as possible—keeping two children on your knee, & carrying Altham (whom I take to be about the size of Penini) up stairs—up a London staircase … much like a ladder .. it makes me breathe hard to think of it even. Well Henrietta .. if you mean to deal just so with your children generally, I do consider it’s as well that you have’nt six– Seriously, dear, the number you have already, the one boy & the one girl, seems to be perfect, & you cant improve perfection—or make a circle rounder. For my part, I am content with even a Penini. I should like a little daughter, but as I cant get her she would be sour I dare say, if I had her fast– Then people are disappointed sometimes. I should’nt have wished to have a second boy, like Sophia Cottrell– Two boys would have made a house too noisy for poets’ work. So it’s best as it is—and I do advise you to think the same– I hope you have taken care, & not begun to walk & climb stairs too early (even without Altham on your back!) because a miscarriage is a more trying thing than an actual confinement & exacts more precautions– When you can get out, however, dont neglect the fresh open air, Henrietta. Arabel tells me that you are afraid of walking out till quite night when Surtees is ready to walk with you. That’s wrong, Henrietta– You should really, under the circumstances, make a point of duty not to mind red coats or black coats, or even the owner of the celebrated cloven foot who walks, or hops rather, in your neighbourhood. Surely if you took Altham with you, you might walk through a regiment– A child is a bodyguard for a woman. May God keep & love you, dearest Henrietta– I have thought much of you lately; loved you constantly, & wished for you all that those who love, wish to their beloveds, when they love them most tenderly.
As for me I am very well again, & getting over my bones by means of cod liver oil. Think of my virtue in swallowing two table spoonfulls of that oil every day—think of my stomach, in not throwing it up again! “Think of Ba’s impropriety in writing such things,” you turn round & say, in a parenthesis, to Surtees! Dear, I am so happy you are not going to the Mediterranean. Malta would not have agreed with Altham in the summer—& you are all of you better in England than in the colonies. Do write & tell me of your prospects of getting back to Taunton. I shall write you a long letter one of these days, but in the meanwhile I toss you just this word in sign of the unspeakable thoughts .. feelings rather. Did you get anything new & pretty for the children in London, in the way of wearing-apparel? Oh, I forgot to answer your question. All last summer I wore nothing on the head but a black hat. When the weather grew cold I put on my cap—black—with black velvet strings—worn far back.
We are coming, be sure. I am in a dream about the “camps,” & how there will be a camp close to London, & you transported to it on your military duties, just as we arrive. That will be exquisite. Our best love to Surtees & the darlings.
Your ever ever affecte Ba–
Thank you for the letter dearest Henrietta.
Address, on integral page: Mrs Surtees Cook.
Publication: TTUL, pp. 79–82.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Dated by reference to letter 3533, in which EBB writes that she is enclosing a letter to Henrietta.
2. As indicated below, Henrietta had suffered a miscarriage. Surtees wrote in his journal: “Henrietta was this morning taken seriously ill: and, alas! had a disappointment!” (Surtees, 14 February 1855).
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