448. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 14–15.
Hope End.
Wednesday– [25 April 1832] [1]
I enclose a note directed to you. It was in the parcel containing Dr Clarke’s commentary,—and as you never opened the parcel last year, you did not, of course, find the note: [2] I forgot to give it to you until now—a forgetfulness you will readily forgive, as by this time it is likely to contain as little news as this letter of mine.
Do not be angry with me. I have not asked Papa. I have thought about it, & spoken about it, & Henrietta & Arabel think with me that it would be quite a vain attempt. Suppose Papa were to be displeased at my teazing him so much on the same subject. In that case, it might be worse than vain. He was not pleased on Monday at my having left home on such a day, & told me that I would certainly kill myself—& then I might be satisfied. That was not a good time to ask the question—was it?—and indeed there seems to be little chance of a good time coming. I would not mind running the risk of being scolded,—but the risk of being prevented from passing some hours with you very soon again, I do not like to run. The poney’s feet are a great deal better,—& I hope you will make up your mind about the additional Greek lines, that we may begin as soon as ever I get into your room—when the air of your head is most rarified. I shall like to be able to say, “Mr Boyd can repeat eight thousand Greek lines”!!– [3]
There is another thing which I should like to be able to say—how much your seeming to wish me to spend two or three days at Ruby Cottage, gratified me– It gave me as much pleasure as any thing could give me now,—or is likely to give me,—& for this I ought to thank you, & do thank you. May God bless you. It is not injurious to everybody, to be happy! To me, it must be so,—or my spirits would not have been permitted to be so broken down & rooted up on every side.
Your ever affectionate friend
E B Barrett
My love to Mrs Boyd.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / Ruby Cottage / Malvern Wells.
Publication: Diary, p. 308.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by Diary, p. 240, entry of 23 April. This letter was obviously written in the same week.
2. EBB had borrowed Clarke’s work (The Holy Bible, … With a Commentary, 1810–25) in September 1831. She borrowed it again on 3 April for her father (Diary, p. 232), and must then have found the note in the unopened parcel.
3. On 1 May 1832 EBB listed the number of Greek lines that Boyd could repeat from memory. It totalled 8,000 (3,280 of prose and 4,720 of verse), and was printed in HUP, II, 134–135 (Reconstruction, D1451). Confusion in the wording has led to a misconception that she, not Boyd, had memorized these lines.
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