416. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 304–305.
Hope End.
May 14th 1831.
My dearest friend,
I suppose I shall have time to write a few lines to you before your post passes Chances Pitch,—& I cannot help writing them tho’ they must be indeed few. Eliza has brought Mr Curzon’s letter for me to see, & the news of your intending to remain another year at Malvern. [1] How I wish that the last had come without the first! How happy I should have been then! But, as you say, even that which grieves us must be best for us! Is it absolutely necessary for you to take the house at the Wells for a year certain? Could it not be taken for a less time, that in the case of our going to any place which is likely to suit you, you could join us there—perhaps at the end of the summer, when Mrs Boyd begins to be afraid of the cold for Annie? You see how very considerate & disinterested I am!—— It has certainly given me pleasure & very great pleasure to find that you are not going to that abominable Charlton or Bath,—& however unaccountable it may seem, I would certainly rather know of your being at Malvern than anywhere else, except where we are. How long we are to remain here seems to be uncertain indeed, but we may, you know, remain some time longer—and I am daring enough to hope for the happiness of paying you more than one visit at Ruby Cottage.
Things are bad enough certainly—but they might be worse for me—for instance, if you had gone to Charlton, where, in any case, I should have had scarcely one chance of ever seeing you again. As to the impossibility of your coming here, that was anticipated & must be borne. I can only say & feel that if you had come, it would have made me too happy,—& that being so is good for nobody.
There is not time to write any more. What a relief it has been to me even under our present circumstances, to hear of your change of plan, I have said once before, & feel every moment!
Give my best love to Mrs Boyd & Annie. Why does not Annie write? Arabel is quite offended. Will not you write, when you can?
May God bless you my dearest friend!
Yours ever affectionately
E B Barrett.
Saturday Evening.
The postman went round the other way, so that this letter has come back to me from Chances Pitch. Arabel desires me to say that our engraving of the orbits is divided in two, & that therefore she supposed you intended her to do only half. She wishes to know whether Mrs Boyd examined the ellipse of the cup very attentively,—as she traced it from a figure in a mathematical book. She dictates—“therefore it must be right”—& afterwards—“but upon my word, he’ll think me dreadfully obstinate”.
I believe Miss Clarke really comes next Tuesday. I wish it were not so! It would be better for her, if it were not; and by ourselves, a certain degree of pain must be felt, whatever comforters approach us. For more reasons than one, I am very anxious to know when & where we are going. Most probably, Papa does not know, himself, but the place will not, I think, be far from London, on account of the business which necessarily keeps him there a great part of the year. The certainty of our leaving Hope End, tho’ not of our leaving it immediately, is evident from Mr Curzon’s letter. Papa might not like to receive the visit of any person out of his own family, <in> the present state of circumstances, even if he did not intend leaving this house for a few weeks! And he may be uncertain at present whether he must move very soon—and he may remain longer than he at present thinks possible. All these mights & mays help, with other considerations, to make me feel pleased at your going to Ruby Cottage. When do you move?
Address, on integral page: H. Stuart Boyd Esqr / Woodland Lodge / Great Malvern.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 133–134.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Whether or not EBB’s urgings (letter 413) played any part in Boyd’s decision, Annie Boyd, who was anxious to move to the gayer atmosphere of Bath or Cheltenham, blamed it on EBB’s “vexatious interference.” A certain coolness between the two of them ensued, and various references in EBB’s Diary show that it persisted for some time.
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