644. EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 49.
50 Wimpole Street
Saturday. June 16. [1838] [1]
My dear Lady Margaret,
You will forgive my writing to you in words rather than sentences, on account of my having been so unwell all the week as to be kept in bed for that time by Dr Chambers, & disciplined with leeches & two blisters in two days. But God has blessed these means to me—& the acute pain in the side from which I suffered is diminished to the ghost of a sensation,—& I am allowed to go down stairs today, on condition of behaving very well & silently. There is of course however a good deal of weakness—& I will not do more than thank you my dear Lady Margaret, for the interest with which I have gone thro’ your ‘gentle-hearted’ (Wordsworth’s own word you know) [2] poems, & felt the abiding sense of religion on every page. May God teach all those who sing, to pray!
A much less modest volume is the one which I send now [3] in company with your Ladyship’s– Dear Lady Margaret, as you are good enough to be interested in its appearance, I must request your acceptance, as I did, your opinion, of it. You will at least believe this good of its author—that she remains
faithfully & affectionately
yours
E B Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: James Hervey-Bathurst.
1. During EBB’s residence in Wimpole Street, 1838 was the only year in which 16 June fell on Saturday.
2. Cf. line 55 of his poem “Nutting”: “In gentleness of heart.”
3. A copy of The Seraphim, now in the Clark Memorial Library (see Reconstruction, C157).
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