3814. EBB to Henrietta Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 23, 4–6.
39 Devonshire Place
Portland Place–
Tuesday. [8 July 1856] [1]
My ever dearest Henrietta, with hands almost incapacitated from cold in this England of July, I write to excuse my heart .. which keeps warm enough & thinks of you in all tender love, however abominable has been the silence– Every day I have meant to write– But you know what London is, how bells ring & Knockers knock, .. & you dont know how desperately in haste I am with poems not done & proofs not corrected– [2] Almost frantic I grow sometimes, what with one thing & another. Meanwhile I have two letters of yours– Dearest Henrietta, how good of you! how happy it is, to know that you think of me, dear, dear! One thing which has put me out of sorts since I came, has been a mistake or worse fault of the chymist here, Twinberrow, [3] through which my indispensable morphine was weaker than usual .. So that I have had the feeling, people have in dreams, of being forced to run, for some great motive or other, & of not being able to move their legs– Now however, Bell, [4] my old man (who told Robert he thought I was dead long ago) has sent me the right proportions, & I am myself & comfortable. Really quite well.
My dearest Henrietta I was going to give you my impression of Arabel. She does not look ill—not at all—but she is extremely out of spirits, it strikes me, though she denies it entirely, and is not strong .. complains of being tired .. yet does’nt relax in any of her business—for instance, was twice at church [5] last sunday, besides the sacrament service which is very long, and had a class of girls the same day– I staid with her the first service & the sacrament, & came home perfectly tired—therefore I know how much too much what followed must have been. Of course on monday she did not feel well, & it would have been miraculous, had it not been so. Altogether, it is a miserable thing to say, .. but I shall almost be glad if she is taken out of town at any expence to myself– I cant, though I entreat & scold .. (& yesterday, I scolded) .. though I scold & curse & swear .. (& I dare say tomorrow I shall come to that) I cant prevail on her anyhow—you know, she always was unpersuadeable on the least point,—&, as it was, so it will be [6] for evermore. But if she goes to the country, she cant go to schools & committees, .. & so she will be as much revived as she was, in the opinion of all, by her visit to Louisa. [7] Dearest darling Arabel, I write in the bitterness of my heart that I wd rather she went away—she who is my compensation for staying here[.]
Not that I hear of a near prospect of their going, .. only Papa may go any day, & will of course go some day–
And you .. dearest Henrietta, .. wont you come, dear, dearest?–
It is sad, this disappointment to dear Surtees [8] —but something else may occur, & his high character for energy & activity is sure to serve him in the end–
Kiss your darlings for me– Oh, to see them, to see them! Peni is very grateful for Altham’s letter.
We are most comfortable here, though of course rather afraid of moving our elbows for fear of breaking something. Mr Kenyon has two servants here, whose business it is to keep the house clean. Our own cook & attend to us. Dear Mr Kenyon is better, I am happy to say– Dr Southey [9] thinks him surprisingly better, & he himself writes to us to admit it.
No religion, no politics, no spirits!! .. add ‘no bodies’, .. & you shut out my poor poem from most subjects in heaven & earth. Well—you may like some things in it—& that’s all I can hope. There is one reference to the spirits, [10] but nobody will be offended by it as Robert is’nt–
So sorry I was to see none of the Hedleys. Aunt Jane called when we were at dinner & promised to come again, but was prevented somehow. I should have liked to see Ibbit & Fanny too! But they will probably be in London again before we leave it– We dined at the Proctors on sunday—& breakfast at Mon[c]kton Milnes’s on friday [11] —but other invitations have been disregarded–
Do write to me, dearest Henrietta. One word tumbles over another–
Robert’s love to you & Surtees–
Your ever attached Ba–
Think that I have’nt seen Minny yet.! Trippy is wonderfully well—looking much better—walks in the park!—think of that!
George is brilliant—the rest (except Occy whom I have’nt seen) looking very well.
Publication: Huxley, p. 250 (in part, as 9 July 1856).
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Date provided by EBB’s reference to “breakfast at … Milnes’s on friday” (see letter 3812, note 2).
3. William Twinberrow & Son, 2 Edwards Street (later, 1868, renamed and renumbered 80 Wigmore Street), Portman Square.
4. Robert Bell, chemist, is listed in the Brownings’ address book of this period (AB-3) at 34 York Street, Portman Square.
5. Paddington Chapel, where the Rev. James Stratten officiated, was located on Marylebone Road, near Harcourt Street, less than a mile west of Devonshire Place.
6. Cf. the answer in “Gloria Patri,” The Book of Common Prayer: “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.”
7. In late May, Arabella had travelled to Oakdene, Kent, to stay with their cousin Louisa Carmichael (née Butler).
8. We have been unable to clarify Surtees’s “disappointment.” His regiment, the 1st Somersetshire Militia, returned from Aldershot to Taunton on 6 June and was “disembodied” six days later, leaving only the permanent staff, on which Surtees served as adjutant (Surtees, 6 and 12 June 1856). Perhaps a lull in his duties had given him an opportunity to apply for some other position.
10. Aurora Leigh (1857), V, 563–570:
I’ve seen some men, veracious, nowise mad,
Who have thought or dreamed, declared and testified,
They heard the Dead a-ticking like a clock
Which strikes the hours of the eternities,
Beside them, with their natural ears,—and known
That human spirits feel the human way
And hate the unreasoning awe which waves them off
From possible communion. It may be.
For this and subsequent Aurora Leigh citations, the line numbers correspond to those in Aurora Leigh, ed. Margaret Reynolds (Athens, Ohio, 1992).
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