738. EBB to John Kenyon
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 251–253.
Torquay
March 7 1840.
My dear cousin & friend,
I am disheartened in beginning to write to you & as insecure of my letter’s reaching you as if it were to go by the via lactea [1] where I cd learn nothing of the foreign postage. Your own was dated November & did not reach me until the close of February. I just waited to ask Miss Mitford for a message—& she replying that she wd write herself to you at Rome if she did not expect you in England immediately, makes me really hesitate whether to write myself or not. But you may be at Rome still– You ask me to write—I will run the risk of it.
Thank you most earnestly for so kindly thinking of me at Florence! Only why did you go to Mr Fisher instead of to the post. [2] ‘Patience & shuffle the cards’ [3] always must be after those dealings with private hands!– And Papa says that I have a particular taste for paying postages—so that, .. particularly in these barren days of Rowland Hill, [4] .. it is a pity you did’nt indulge me. Here you will find us all thinking like Parliamentary dignitaries—prepaying “a penny for our thoughts”, [5] & wondering in the high sublime of our vanities & the deep obscure of our ignorances as to cheapness!——
But indeed & indeed I was delighted to see your writing. I had begun taking my state with yours, by being still with your wanderings afar, to fancy that I never again was to see so much of you! Thank you for the pleasure of the undoing of that fancifulness as well as for the other pleasurablenesses of your letter—ending as was fitting, in those close clear classical stanzas which brought you before me at once. [6] You left behind you, by the way, a song for the Tableaux—& while you were praising Florence we were praising you. It was extracted in the Athenæum & elsewhere [7] —& worthily—although inferior to that Immortal who floated away on wine to his immortality!– [8] The Tableaux Annual prospered this year, above any annual. Well, it might– The engravings rise far above their predecessors,—& dear Miss Mitford’s stories are more than usually full of interest & character. Mr Horne too, the Cosmo de’ Medici Horne, vouchsafed what he called a “tragic brevity” which cd not, being his, fail in power & imagination. As for me I only sate in the chimney corner & told a ghost story. Miss Mitford sends you her kindest regards,—and I am able, thank God, to tell you that she is better than she has been. At one time she was so ill as to make me quite uncomfortable,—her fathers illness having tried & worn her more than appeared at first!. He is quite well again now.
You desire to know all about us– Papa is in London!– He left me a fortnight before Christmas intending & promising to return very soon. And I have not seen him yet!– Well—there is nothing for it but patience & endurance … & an inward vow that if I can leave Torquay before next winter, I will– He has so much London occupation, that it is next to impossible, his being with me much, at this distance of two hundred miles. But in his kindness—which touches me even to pain sometimes in thinking of—he lets me keep with me both my sisters & my eldest brother—so many comforts stripped away from him for my sake!– All this human love is tender & beautiful of itself, & none the less for that secret meaning of pathos in which it shadows forth the Divine. I have been confined to my bed since October, & am pretty nearly as weak as a baby—only I can write you see, & cannot make a noise!– My voice has quite failed– But I recovered it last year in the warm weather, & my physician thinks it will return to me now. I am not, he assures me, essentially worse since October—(when the colder weather came on, & poor Dr Barry’s sudden death by fever affected me naturally & deeply—) and it is considered “both possible & probable” that in the case of my passing a favorable summer, the next winter may be an improvement upon the present. In fact I may (although the case is very precarious) recover in a measure—but never to an ordinary degree of strength & health.
Papa dear Papa is quite well. He gave me his picture when I saw him last, [9] & it hangs just opposite to my eyes all day & night. George is on circuit! From my brothers in Jamaica, comes nothing but good news—both of them being perfectly well satisfied with a sugar cane life. But oh Mr Kenyon, what pain it gave me to think of their going without a farewell!– God’s will be done– May He bless you!– There must be much to enjoy & triumph in where you are—but dont forget England. Your friends the Garrows are quite well. I hear of them. I see nobody except my physician—but I shall. And I did see Miss Garrow three times during the summer. She is full of talent & enthusiasm—but I confess myself disappointed in her poetry. It is feeling & graceful– Is it more? There is too much conventionalism in the poetry of the day.
I have much to say—but I cannot fancy that you will read it—that it will reach you!–
With united kindest regards, believe me
Ever affectionately yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Do let me hear from you now & then—if only by a few lines. It is so pleasant to me.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Berg Collection.
1. “Milky Way.”
2. Probably William Fisher (1817–95), an Irishman who had studied in Italy and who exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Dublin Academy, the British Institute and the New Water-colour Society. He painted portraits of Landor and Kenyon, and RB later (1854) sat for him.
3. Cervantes, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, pt. II, ch. 23.
4. A reference to the newly-introduced, prepaid penny postage, the brain-child of Rowland Hill (1795–1879).
5. One of the proverbs listed in Morris Palmer Tilley’s Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950). No derivation is given.
6. i.e., the stanzas quoted by EBB to Miss Mitford in letter 734.
7. The Athenæum of 26 October 1839 (no. 626, pp. 809–810), in its review of the 1840 Findens’ Tableaux, quoted four verses of Kenyon’s “To an Æolian Harp.”
8. A reference to Kenyon’s “Champagne Rose,” embodied in Miss Mitford’s “The Wager” in the 1838 Findens’ Tableaux.
9. Presumably painted by the man referred to as “Papa’s artist, Mr. Mills” in letter 731.
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