602. EBB to John Kenyon

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 1.

[London]

[ca. 1838] [1]

We gratefully accept dear Mr Kenyon, the present you have sent us—and altho’ we had not the happiness of knowing personally Her to whom it bears so mournful a reference, yet do believe that we cannot make this connection between the worth of the dead, and the confidence & kindness of the living, in these thanks to you, with unaffected feelings. [2]

My sisters desire me to express their thanks—& I linger over those of mine just to say, that I receive from you my dear friend this kindness, both as a proof of your friendship, and a token of what you kindly tell me,—that She would not have considered me quite unworthy of Her’s——

Your obliged

E B Barrett.

Address, on integral page: John Kenyon, Esqr / 4 Harley Place.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Eton College Library, Michael Meredith Collection.

1. Dating is approximate, based on handwriting and watermark (1837).

2. From the context, the gift was probably some memento of Kenyon’s second wife, Caroline (née Curteis), who had died on 7 August 1835.

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