430. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 327–328.

Hope End

Friday. [16 September 1831] [1]

My dearest friend,

I found Mr Bohn’s parcel directed to E B Barrett Esqr on my return home yesterday. [2] I cannot get anyone to take it to Ruby Cottage today, & perhaps you would rather have it by the post as soon as you can, than wait until another day. Mr Bohn seems to have some valuable books: but you beat his whole catalogue in the antiquity of your Gregories.

Will you ever forgive me for trusting Chrysostom in profane hands? Dominick Trant siezed upon the book yesterday, & began to wish more sensibly than usual, that he had all the contents in his head. I observed that in that case, he would have to read his recantation instead of his mass book next Sunday: upon which he began to beg & entreat & make such a bustle in the middle of the road about my lending him what I had no right to lend, that I gave up the point. Now I have been as angry with myself as you can be, ever since,—tho’ he faithfully promised to take as much care of the book as I could do, & to return it to me, the next time I drove by. He wishes to “consult somebody about it”! Nonsense! I do believe, now that I can think cooly, that he made the fuss merely for the sake of making a fuss,—& from a spirit of opposition, because he saw how unwilling I was to do what he asked. He does not know which comes first, alpha or omega, and therefore–—but I am as great a goose as he is—and if you are not in a passion, you are canonizable.

No letters again today. I have delayed writing this, until the last moment, because until then, I had not decided on sending the catalogue.

Ever affectionately yours

E B Barrett.

Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr–

Publication: Diary, pp. 286–287.

Manuscript: Huntington Library.

1. Dated by Diary, p. 130, entry for 16 September.

2. Catalogue of a Very Select Collection of Books English and Foreign Offered … by Henry G. Bohn (London, 1831).

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