396.5. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 2.

[Hope End]

[25 January 1831] [1]

They tell me that I have time only to write one line, because Jane is going. I did not think of her going so soon, or I would have begun to write before, & have written to more than one person at Woodland Lodge. As it is, a few words must be sent to you to thank you for the message Arabel delivered to me yesterday, more faithfully than she did the Phalaris to you. She was aware, I suppose, that its value to me, was greater than that of your Phalaris to you; for as there is a method in madness, so there may be something of the kind in carelessness. You have good reasons for knowing that I am never careless by any chance; but, as she likes you very much, I have forgiven an error, into which, “by the necessity of my nature,” (as Mr Brougham says) I never could have fallen.

Jane will not wait, I fear, to let me say; nor, if she could wait, could I say, how very very much pleased I shall be to receive you here, & how happy the anticipation makes me feel!—

Thank you too for sending me the Acrostic, & Agamemnon. The latter I have not had time to read except in a cursory manner. I think the former much improved since you showed it to me out of print. It is harmonious & poetical; but as an acrostic, inferior in my opinion to the first one, because it has no point. Do we agree, or not?

Give my love to Mrs Boyd & Annie, & believe me, my dear Mr Boyd,

Ever affectionately yours

E B Barrett.

Address, on integral page: H. S Boyd Esqr.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dated by Arabel’s visit to Woodland Lodge on Monday, 24 January 1831. See letter 396.

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