663. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 80–81.
50 Wimpole Street
Friday. [24 August 1838] [1]
My dear friend,
It seems to be at last definitively fixed that we go tomorrow. The wind is silent & I must be so too—though very very sad at heart.
My dearest Papa has kindly permitted one of my sisters to be my companion; and Henrietta is going with me for the first part of my absence, & then Arabel will take her place. Bro & George are going too.
And all this companionship is more than I hoped for, & I ought to be contented with it—& thankful for every brightness which has fallen, beyond my hope, upon my present circumstances. But still I cannot help being very sorrowful even while I write about the brightness!
May God bless you. It may please Him for me to return & visit you again. In the meantime I must once more thank you for the kind interest & trouble you have taken about my book & me! Two notes of yours lie unanswered to this moment—but while our uncertainties lasted, I did not like to write. Good bye dear Mr Boyd! Do let me hear from you when the disinclination to letter-writing is least strong—& ever believe me your affectionate friend
E B Barrett.
We sail at eight in the morning to Plymouth, or rather Devonport, & shall not reach it until Monday night. Afterwards we avail ourselves of the earliest Torquay packet! [2]
Once more, Good bye!—— Remember me to Emily [Harding].
Publication: Weaver, p. 418.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Dated by the impending departure for Torquay.
2. EBB and her companions sailed on The Shannon for Plymouth on 25 August, then on to Torquay, which they reached on 27 August (see SD943).
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