725. EBB to Unidentified Correspondent
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 219.
[Torquay]
[January 1840] [1]
<***> He was however at church on Christmas day––& upon Mr Elliott’s [2] being mercifully inclined to omit the Athanasian creed, [3] prompted him most episcopally from the pew with a “Whereas:” & further on in the creed, when the benign reader substituted the word “condemnation[”] for the terrible one … “Damnation” exclaimed the Bishop!! [4] The effect must have been rather singular.
<…> [5]
only by sympathy, <…> faultless in all ways. In regard <…> & shelter no house can be better adapted to me. The difficulty, even on cold days, has been to keep the thermometer low enough; notwithstanding which, we cant complain & of closeness. We have had some cold weather at Torquay even this year, & thermometers in the upper part of the town & out of doors did, I understand, stoop to two <…> the freezing point upon two several <…> the cold a mile off you know <***>
Publication: None traced.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Dated by letter 727, which describes the same incidents.
2. The curate, described by EBB in letter 727 as “soft-hearted.”
3. The creed embodying the opinions of Athanasius (ca. 298–373), Bishop of Alexandria, concerning the nature of the Trinity.
4. Henry Phillpotts (1778–1869), elected Bishop of Exeter in 1830, was a high churchman par excellence, being strenuously opposed to the current pressures in favour of Catholic emancipation, and having voted consistently against Parliamentary reform. He was known to the Hedleys, through whose intercession EBB had obtained his frank for letter 673.
5. Both the upper and lower parts of the sheet have been cut off.
___________________
