595. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 295–296.
[London]
Saturday. [18 November 1837] [1]
I am so sorry dear Mr Kenyon to hear—which I did, last night for the first time—of your being unwell– I had hoped that today wd bring a better account,—but your note with its next week prospect, is disappointing. The “ignominy” wd have been very preferable—to us at least! particularly as it need not have lasted beyond today—dear Georgie being quite recovered & at his law again—& no more symptoms of small pox in anybody. We shd all be well, if it were not for me & my cough, which is better—but I am not quite well—nor have yet been out.
A letter came to me from dear Miss Mitford a few days since, which I had hoped to talk to you about. Some of the subject of it, is, Mr Kenyon’s “only fault”—which ought of course to be a large one to weigh against the multitudinous ones of other people—but which seems to be––“He has the habit of walking in without giving notice. He thinks it saves trouble—whereas in a small family & at a distance from a town, the effect is that one takes care to be provided for the whole time that one expects him—& then by some exquisite ill luck, on the only day when one’s larder is empty, in he comes”! And so, if you have not written to interrupt her in this process of indefinite expectation, the “only fault” will, in her eyes, grow, as it ought,—as large as fifty others.
I do hope dear Mr Kenyon, soon to hear that you are better—& well!—and that your course of prophecy may not run smooth all thro’ next week.
Very truly yours
E B Barrett.
Publication: LEBB, I, 167–168 (as [?January 1844]).
Manuscript: University of Iowa.
1. EBB provides the date in the following letter to Miss Mitford.
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