4848. EBB to Susan Howard
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 16–17.
Rome. 126. Via Felice
March 12. [1861] [1]
My dear Mrs Howard, your letter came to me when I was in bitter need of comfort myself– What are we to say to others while our own heart faints? I had been in great anxiety for months,—& then at last came news from England, [2] —& there was no more to fear. Dear Mrs Stowe’s letter which reached me with yours, was the first touch of comfort I could call by such a name.
Before then, the pain you expressed [3] & a sermon of Mr Beecher’s [4] had reminded me of an old forgotten m·s of mine (De Profundis) “written in my earlier manner” (say the critics) & referring to a great grief, [5] —and I sent it for printing in the Independent– [6] That was for you, & not for me—yet by the time it was printed & came out here, some of it sailed me also thro’ a new trial. How the threads cross!—
And I, in my life, have suffered many losses– I look trembling sometimes at my husband & my child, in spite of the probabilities in my own favor– I have taken a great deal of scourging to learn my lesson—& after all it’s learnt but poorly. Dear Mrs Howard,—when the young go away with hands full of unblown roses, who should lament that they did not stay to sit under leafless trees?– Why yearn for them to live to lose daughters?— Let us consider, of all our holy Dead, that the lessons they learn now are not learnt with pangs but easily, while they sit under the eyes of Him who loves them more than we ever could.
And now, do believe me that I never even was aware of having “paid” for your former letter– Certainly, certainly, I did not miss a stamp on it–
May God bless you.
My husband unites with me in regards.
How good of you to think of the photograph, which I shall value so much– Think a little too of the truth of
Yours in affectionate sympathy
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Publication: John Raymond Howard, Remembrance of Things Past (New York, 1925), p. 119 (in part).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Year provided by EBB’s reference to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s letter, to which letter 4850 is a reply.
2. Of Henrietta Cook’s death.
3. Over the death of her daughter Annie; see letter 4721, note 3.
5. The death by drowning of her brother Edward (“Bro”) on 11 July 1840.
6. Published in The Independent (New York) on 6 December 1860 (p. 1) and in Last Poems (1862). See letter 4815, note 3.
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