4795. EBB to William Surtees Cook
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 28, 247–248.
Rome– Via Felice–
[ca. 15] [December 1860] [1]
My dear Surtees my dear brother,
If I have not written before it has been not because I have been unmindful of you, but because I have had no courage for myself– The same Knife has pierced us both– We both know she was the best, sweetest, purest, tenderest—and though I do confess, Surtees, that your loss is the greater, (seeing that she was closer to you and loved you above all,) yet mine goes back further into the past and devastates my memories of life & youth.
Dear Surtees, I have this to say to you––to bid you be sure that she loves you now as she ever did, and that, if we knew all, we should probably be aware that she is with you and her darling children, ministering from within & from the spiritual sphere, as she did from without & from the earthly– I believe this, I– “Are they not all ministering spirits,” [2] who are as she was?– I believe it–
For the rest, & however it may be, I want to tell you besides that I am your debtor eternelly [sic] for the happiness you gave her, through these last years– She said when she told me of her illness—(these were her dear memorable words,) that she had been so happy with such a husband––“such a husband” .. were the words .. and with her children, that she was ready to accept from God’s hands whatever affliction might come, as just and not to be complained of–
She looked up to God– Where else can we look?–
I cannot write many things in my heart– I have suffered much from suspence & anxiety,—all over now. If I did not believe entirely in the nearness of a spiritual world in which the lost are found, I should find it all still harder to bear–
Robert feels for you deeply, and we both join in the most true love– Oh Surtees, when we left you we did not think of this—— Perhaps it is as wrong in the agony of these mortal partings not to think of the ecstatic meeting prepared for us before the face and by the work of the Lord Christ——
Love me a little as a sister, Surtees– I love you & shall always, for her sake who loved and loves you so infinitely, and who owed such happy years to your tender & faithful love.
May God bless your precious children & you. Oh—pity me that I was not there.
Your affectionate & grateful sister
Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: In private collection.
1. Approximate dating based on letter 4793, in which EBB tells Arabella of having “not yet written to … Surtees,” and letter 4797, in which she tells her that she has written.
2. Hebrews 1:14.
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