4042. EBB to Sophia Eckley

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 133–134.

Casa Betti.

Monday– [?7] [September 1857] [1]

My dear Mrs Eckley I thank you very much for the details you give us– I own to yourself that I feel timid as to my strength holding out through such a pilgrimage, [2] —I am nervous too (foolishly I dare say) about my child– Still my ‘nay’ is not ‘nay,’ [3] —everything depending of course on my husband’s persistency. However it may be at last, your kindness in caring to have me with you, will be a pleasant thought to

Your affectionate & faithful

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Berg Collection.

1. Dating based on EBB’s use of a return address and a full formal signature, both characteristic of an early stage in her correspondence with Mrs. Eckley, and by the mention of “a pilgrimage” (see letter 4044).

2. To Egypt and the Holy Land (see letter 4044).

3. Probably an allusion to II Corinthians 1:18 (“But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay”) and to Protestant theology that adapted it. Martin Luther translated the last part of the verse as “My yea is yea and my nay is nay.” Later, John Wesley used the same statement to characterize one who does not vacillate (see Arthur Wilde Little, The Times and the Teaching of John Wesley, 2nd ed., Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1905, p. 46).

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